Behind every work hanging at @phillipscollection is a commitment to preservation, care, and stewardship. These photos offer a glimpse into the thoughtful conservation work happening behind the scenes to help ensure these pieces can continue to inspire generations to come. #vangogh #lloydmcneillquartet #lloydmcneillart #matisse #johnsloanartist
I didn’t see this juxtaposition of Fra Angelico’s frescoes at San Marco with small Rothko panels. I wish I had. Two artists separated by five centuries who understood color and space as vehicles for the ineffable — light, transcendence, devotion rendered visible, material. San Marco is one of my favorite museums in the world, and this is exactly the kind of encounter it invites. Thank you @boltonbeatriz for sharing.
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@dailyrothko
Fabulous quick trip to The Barnes Foundation to see "Henri Rousseau" on the last days of the exhibition, including two gems loaned from The Phillips Collection.
I was inculcated with a passion for Rousseau from an early age by Lawrence Steefel, a wildly enthusiastic modern art history professor at Washington University who captured me for the discipline. I've been delighted by the charm of Rousseau ever since...strange, wonderful, lighthearted, and always so earnest. There is nothing cynical or ironic about these whimsical, magical works.
And a few favorite snapshots of the Barnes permanent collection.… What struck me on this visit was the persistent tension between the art and the doctrinaire installation framework that insists on making demands of both viewer and object, prescribing how the work should be seen and how the experience should go. Art always outpaces theories of interpretation and prescriptions of meaning. At the Barnes, you can see and feel the works pressing against the constraints, struggling to be seen on their own terms. The art wins every time.
#henrirousseau @phillipscollection@barnesfoundation
Things my brilliant husband said in his op-ed in Art Newspaper today….
/2025/11/06/comment-the-phillips-collection-museums-us-250th-anniversary
As the US’s 250th anniversary approaches, museums must keep pushing the American story forward.
The Phillips Collection was founded amid a president’s calls for a return to “normalcy”, and today the museum is addressing a city and a country grappling with a similar dynamic.
Sometimes I find myself in the rarest of privileged positions, and last night’s opening of "Dyani White Hawk: Love Language" at the Walker Art Center was one of them.
I am deeply grateful to have been invited and welcomed into the Lakota ceremony that preceded the exhibition opening celebration. Lasting 2-1/2 hours, it included a drum circle, stirring talks centered on the exhibition’s themes—See, Honor, Nurture, and Celebration—along with loving, funny, and generous remarks from Dyani’s friends, family, and important voices in the Native American community in the region.
I’ve never experienced anything like it, let alone inside a US art museum. The warmth, depth, openness, and sense of kinship among Dyani’s Lakota relatives (broadly writ, as I learned and felt) was memorable and transformative. It really was a privilege to be there, to be in a space I would otherwise never have the opportunity to occupy.
Thank you and congratulations to Dyani, the Walker, and everyone who made the evening and exhibition possible.
The exhibition itself is superlative, flawlessly curated and breathtaking in scope. The elegant presentation reveals the full range of Dyani's expressive power and true mastery of diverse media. Her ability to put down, shape, and assemble materials verges on the alchemical. I love this work deeply. No wonder the exhibition is called "Love Language."
@dwhitehawk@walkerartcenter@bockleygallery@alexandergrayassociates
My visit with FRA ANGELICO at @palazzostrozzi
1. MOTHER AND CHILD
2. MARY MAGDALENE’S REPENTANCE
3. TROMPE L’OEIL
4. MARY MAGDALENE IS A POP STAR
5. THE FRIARS DO WELL IN THE END
6. THE MOCKING OF CHRIST
7. I FEEL LIKE THOMAS STRUTH
8. I’M RUBBER YOUR GLUE
9. NEW YORK TIMES ILLUSTRATION. I LOVED YOUR PIECE @jasonfarago
10. BACK TOGETHER AGAIN
11. FRA ANGELICO’S HANDWRITING
12. THE PALACE
13. THE BIG ONE: THE STROZZI ALTARPIECE
Outstanding must-see exhibition (my crappy photos of the art cannot do justice to the work so you’ll just have to go see it for yourself at the National Gallery or the Getty) And we bumped into co-curator Philip Brookman.
“It’s not every day you can to walk through a Dubuffet.”
Jardin d’émail by Jean Dubuffet is a walled ‘garden’ designed specifically for the Kröller-Müller Museum in 1974.
With my new Hayden Haynes (Seneca, Kiowa, Muskoke) bolo tie, which, by sporting it, earned me much love while walking this year's SWAIA Santa Fe Indian Market @santafeindianmarket .
I ran into old friend (47th Corcoran Biennial 2002) Marcel Dzama at a @hoshartists event.
...and many other amazing people. Thank you @walkeryoungbird
Basket maker Theresa Second (Penobscot) and winner of the basketry category.
Multimedia artist Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti) and winner of the diverse media category.
Wood carver Robert Albert (Hopi) and his extraordinary clown Katsina, which he made from a single piece of wood--winner of the wood carving category.
A vessel made of a variety of traditionally and creatively cured fish skins, seal fur, and shells by 14-year-old Naats Tla’a (Tlingit), who won the youth category with this small and remarkable vessel. You can see her in the right-hand margin of the second picture, with an arrow pointing to the significantly less complicated yet also beautiful vessel that I purchased, made of salmon skin, also cured, so that it functions almost like leather.
The inimitable DY Begay (Navajo) showing off her sister's stunning weaving.
Maggie Thompson (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) made these sculptural garments with an activist twist, from her excellent exhibition at IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts @instituteofamericanindianarts #swaiaindianmarket #swaia2025
It’s been a joyful, whirlwind stretch at The Phillips Collection—full of big moments, exciting transitions, and well-deserved celebrations.
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We toasted and bid a fond farewell to our extraordinary Board Chair, John Despres. See John with the Binstock family dog, Yoki (yes, she’s part of the festivities too), and then swipe to see John catching a tribute from Chair Emeritus George Vradenburg (John is now a part of the Chair Emeritus club at the Phillips). That’s John along the left margin of the photo, surrounded by his lovely family. The celbratory toasts and dinner were a fitting send-off for a leader who’s meant so much to me personally, and to our museum.
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We also welcomed the brilliant photographer Richard Learoyd to celebrate the acquisition of three of his monumental works, bringing the total number of Learoyds in our collection to five. Richard works with a camera obscura (think pinhole camera, but with highly sophisticated lenses), creating images that feel more like magic than photography. They’re otherworldly. Having Richard with us was a terrific treat.
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Then came the opening of VIVIAN BROWNE: MY KIND OF PROTEST, a show that’s as powerful as it is overdue. Browne was an abstract painter at a time when making that choice was, in her words, a form of protest. She stood for her beliefs and for her art, and the results are breathtaking. Her family joined us for the opening, and seeing the show with them—so beautifully installed in our intimate galleries—was deeply moving.
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And finally… a little personal highlight: me with one of my many favorite paintings in the Collection—Picasso’s 1930s portrait of Dora Maar—freshly hung for the first time since I arrived at the Phillips. Thrilling!
#PhillipsCollection #MuseumLife #RichardLearoyd #VivianBrowne #MyKindOfProtest #WomenInArt #Picasso #DoraMaar
