Degas and dancers at The Phillips

The entrance to the Phillips's 90th birthday party/Patricia Leslie

Students from the Kirov Academy of Ballet at The Phillips/Patricia Leslie

Edgar Degas Self-Portrait 1855/Musee d'Orsay, Paris, Wikimedia Commons

A few came for the free Degas show at The Phillips/Patricia Leslie

A birthday party at The Phillips with guest artist, Edgar Degas/Patricia Leslie

Birthday dancing at The Phillips/Patricia Leslie

At The Phillips/Patricia Leslie

A week+ late? C'est la vie!

Whoever thought a public 90th birthday party with a major guest artist would be anything but crowded needs to see another doctor.

The Phillips was just as packed for its free birthday fete as anyone might have imagined, and more. When I arrived about 1:30 p.m., I somehow and fortunately missed the lines and slipped in, and, about an hour later, overcome by crowds, elbows, docents, and students saying "please, do not...," discovered about 70 persons standing outside on a lovely fall day, awaiting admission.

In addition to breathtaking and romantic pieces of art which make up the exhibition, the people found inside, tiny but real teen-aged ballerinas in full costume from Washington's Kirov Academy of Ballet School slowly dancing to taped music. Like porcelain dolls in an expensive music box, the ballerinas could have been models themselves for Degas who, a label said, made more than 1,500 works about dancing. Thirty of them are in the show.  Whoever had the Kirov idea deserves special kudos.

Yes, the Degas (1834-1917) show is definitely worth seeing, and yes! The price to see it ($10 or $12)

with generally unobstructed views (one may imagine) is definitely a good value. (Or join the Phillips for $60 (on up) and pay nothing extra for special shows.)
What: Degas’s Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint
When: Now through January 8, 2012, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday with extended hours on Thursday until 8:30 p.m., and 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sunday
Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Avenue, NW (near Q and 21st)
How much: $12 (adults) and $10 (seniors and students). Free for members and children under age 18.
Metro stop: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit)
For more information: 202-387-2151

An Imprismed Artist: Giorgio Morandi

By the Queen of Free (I was a guest)

You may think bottles and jars and containers painted from different perspectives in muted colors would be boring but then you haven’t seen the latest exhibition at the Phillips Collection: Morandi Master of Modern Still Life which is up through May 24, 2009.

Upon reading a description you might decide it's not worth a trip but you would be missing a good-sized show with several Cezanne (opening Thursday in Philadelphia) comparisons, intriguing still lifes, and interesting etchings.

Morandi is considered a master of landscapes, too, but the exhibit has just a few of them. However, the show is made all the more fascinating when you learn that Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) lived in the same Bologna apartment with his mother and three sisters practically his whole life and never ventured outside Italy until he was 66! Egads! No wonder his subjects were indoor and inanimate. Does this explain why he painted almost no humans except seven portraits of himself? Please: Where is his biography?

Wikipedia calls him "a prescient and important forerunner of Minimalism.” I’ll say.

One painting, “Wild Flowers” was reminiscient of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” without the sun, as in yellow. In the accompanying brochure the Phillips says Morandi has a cult following. Oh, I am sure. With sisters and a mother for roommates, is it any wonder his paintings of boxes and shadows are in muted colors? Were they small-sized tombs for different body parts? It is easy to note the plentiful phallic symbols on top of many of the containers. Hey, if I were living with a mother and three sisters in an apartment I’d be drawing weapons of mass destruction. (Hollywood! Get me Hollywood.)

Friday night the Phillips hosted “upper-level” members to a borderline lively reception where enough hors d’oeuvres, dessert pieces, wine, and Italian beer were served to substitute for dinner. A pleasant, enjoyable evening also presenting food for thought.

Party at the Phillips

Was there a party going on?

It sure seemed like it Thursday evening at the Phillips Collection, with a young lawyers association taking a private tour of the Jacob Lawrence Migration Series, the Brett Weston lecture in the auditorium, and the Gallery Talk on Vincent van Gogh's and Pierre Bonnard's paintings. Whew!

It was a race to get to all the places, paintings, and lectures I wanted to see and hear.


First off, the Brett Weston lecture, presented by the curator of the show, Stephen Bennett Phillips (any relation?), at 6:30 p.m. was delivered not only to a SRO crowd in the large, nice, new auditorium which seats 180, but also to a SRO crowd in a nearby overflow vestibule which heard the lecturer on remote and saw Weston's photographs on a large screen like the viewers saw them in the auditorium.


The Phillips' Brooke Rosenblatt wrote me the count was 197. Not bad for an art lecture in Washington, D.C. on a Thursday evening in July.

The retrospective show is entitled: "Brett Weston: Out of the Shadow" and will travel to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art after it ends at the Phillips September 7. Mr. Weston (1911-1993) was a photographer of the Southwest like his father, Edward Weston (1886-1958) who also has some art in the exhibit. It's interesting to compare the subjects and styles of father and son, black and white, stark photographs.

Edward Weston, whom Wikipedia calls one of the "greatest photographic artists" of the 20th century, was "almost" a manic depressive, Mr. Phillips said, and his illness is evident in some of his photographs (a dilapidated car, a chair). He was later struck by Parkinson's disease.


Brett Weston's photographs "pushed abstractionism" which Mr. Phillips mentioned several times. Brett Weston joined the Army in 1943, working in the Signal Corps as a photographer in New York City where he practiced and honed his art. On his way to a post in Texas, he was "transformed" by the white sands he saw, and some of his best shots are of contrasts in shadows, sand, and silhouettes. He loved California and the West Coast.

He wanted to shoot photographs of things "as they were," Mr. Phillips said. Many of his photos include sun and water and a empty, dark center. He was married four times, the longest marriage lasting four years, and his career, not surprisingly, took precedence over his wives.

When Mr. Phillips' presentation ended, I flew up three flights of stairs to find the “gallery talk” at 7 which took some doing since none of the five staff members I asked, knew where the group was. A new acquaintance, also hunting the gallery talk, and I were quite happy to eventually locate the talk already underway.

Standing in front of the first of three paintings of southern France and the Mediterranean which she described in the half hour talk, Lois Steinitz was engaging, informative, and delightful, and the crowd grew.

She began with Pierre Bonnard’s “The Open Window,” then his “The Palm,” and lastly, "The Road Menders" by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1880). Leading us from one painting to another, she contrasted the differences in the colors the painters selected: Bonnard’s bright and sunny scenes; Van Gogh’s, mute and practically monochromatic choices. Until she pointed them out, I was unaware of the "anthropomorphic" characteristics in the "Road Menders," and suddenly, the trees and lamppost came alive as people. The trees grew arms and legs, sometimes four, right before my eyes. (All it takes is an "awakening.")

Bonnard (1867-1947) inserted his wife in many of his paintings, and there she was: hidden in the right corner of “The Open Window” and standing, like a ghost holding an apple (suggesting Eve, Ms. Steinitz offered) at the front of the otherwise colorful “Palm.”

A truly captivating evening for art lovers and well worth a Phillips membership or single admission price. Did I mention the Diebenkorn show?

A New Degas' "Dancers at the Bar"

About 150 persons attended the recent lecture at the Phillips Collection about the repair to this painting described in detail by Elizabeth ("Lilli") Steele. She is the head of conservation at the Phillips and addressed an audience of mostly young, female, and likely, conservators or students.

In the magnificent new auditorium at the Phillips, Ms. Steele said she had been intrigued by the painting for as long as she has worked at the Phillips: 20 years.

It's believed Degas began painting it around 1884 and "probably worked on it for 20 years", Ms. Steele said.

Degas kept the painting in his possession (likely in his studio: "probably the worst place") until he died in 1917 . His estate sold the painting the next year, and Duncan Phillips purchased it in 1944 for $18,000 ("and it's likely worth ten times that now, " Ms. Steele said.)

From 2002 to 2007 the painting went "on tour" to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other locations.

After it returned "home" and inflamed Ms. Steele with love anew, she inspected it closely and with approval by Phillips hierarchy no doubt, began a restoration of the painting which took 10 months.

Before any painting is repaired, an in depth study of the artist, the painting, and its provenance is conducted so that the conservator/archivist gains more information, background and knowledge of the artist's intentions, art, and its various locations, Ms. Steele said.

Microscopic inspection and an examination under ultraviolet light of every possible inch of the painting were made.

Once grime and dirt were removed and a "gentle vacuuming" was performed with small tools, including dental equipment and cotton swabs, brighter "almost different" colors became clearly evident and the painting's three-dimensional effect was restored. The "before and after" pictures of the painting shown on a large screen convinced the audience Ms. Steele was not exaggerating.

Her investigation uncovered a tear in the canvass, a thumbprint and two different inscriptions by two different people. Also, an infrared image of the painting revealed six, rather than four legs, and the change in skirt lengths Degas made. "Degas kept changing his mind about the (dancers') appearance," she said.

For Ms. Steele personally, "it was a lot of fun to work on," she said. "A big thrill!"

She spoke for about 45 minutes and answered questions before some audience members rapidly departed to go view the painting at another gallery at the Phillips. "Dancers at the Bar" is much larger than what I would have thought.

Lectures always add interest and background to the understanding of a painting, making original art all the more pleasing to see up close and personal.

Suggestion to Phillips: Refrain from permitting latecomers to interrupt lectures by directing them to rear seating only.

The Phillips Collection is located at 1600 21st Street, NW near the Dupont Circle Metro stop (north end). Admission on weekdays to see this Degas is free; weekends, $12 which includes admission to special exhibits.