Two major exhibitions close this weekend at The Phillips

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Kin XLVIII (Life is But a Dream), 2011, Conte on paper and metal hard mirror, private collection/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Sunday is the last day to see two extraordinary, contemporary exhibitions at The Phillips Collection:  Whitfield Lovell: The Kin Series and Related Works and Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series, the latter which includes all 60 panels brought together from the collections at The Phillips and the Museum of Modern Art.

Lovell, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant in 2007, has a worldwide reputation for drawing anonymous African-American portraits from photographs and placing them with everyday objects in settings whose times range from the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Dawn to Dawn, 2006, charcoal on wooden barn door and found objects, courtesy DC Moore Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie.  

The label copy for Dawn to Dawn reads in part: "I like making installations because the sculptural elements thrust the figures into the viewer's physical space--something that I find difficult to do in painting."  The wooden background was not constructed for the art, but the art was constructed using found wood, one of many examples which Lovell utilizes to make renderings of people, places, things, and humanity.


If anyone ever questioned the value of an arts education in school, Lovell is proof of its benefits. While a teenager, he attended several art programs which included a spiritual experience at the Prado in Madrid when he was 18.

Wikipedia quotes pages from Lippard, Hanzal, King-Hammond and Way's The Art of Whitfield Lovell: Whispers from the Walls, 2003:

...While I was standing in front of a Velasquez painting I had an amazing spiritual experience. The painter had communicated with me through centuries and cultures, and I suddenly understood the role of the artist. I ran from room to room. Goya, El Greco, Reubens, and Picasso all began to speak out to me. Whatever they were doing in those rooms was what I wanted to do with my life. 

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Bleck, 2008, Conte crayon on wood and boxing gloves, courtesy, DC Moore Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Kin I (Our Folks), 2008, Collection of Reginald and Aliya Browne/Photo by Patricia Leslie. The white slivers on the face and hat are reflections of light on the glass.

The piece above was the first of Lovell's "Kin" series, individual portraits which now number 60. The wall label says the flags beneath the young man are indicative of the complex relationship blacks have with their homeland, created eight years before Colin Kaepernick almost became a household name.

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Whispers: Rising River Blues, 1999, charcoal on wood and found objects, courtesy, DC Moore Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie  

In the Phillips gallery, the tableau above faces the one below with the clothes strategically placed by Mr. Lovell, a curator said. While in residency in Denton, Texas, the artist studied Quakertown, a black community in the center of Denton which existed from 1875 until 1924 until it was torn asunder because of proximity to a nearby white girls school. The scattered clothing reflects the upheaval families faced, forced to move. Mr. Lovell studied thousands of faces at the Texas African American Photography Archive to capture his lasting impressions which he placed on wood for these two pieces.  On the phonograph player above, repetitious, soft music plays continuously.

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Whispers:  Mattie When You Marry, 1999, charcoal on wood and found objects, courtesy, DC Moore Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Whitfield Lovell,  Kin XLV (Das Lied von der Erde), 2008 or 2011, Conte on paper with string of pearls, Phillips Collection, Dreier Fund for Acquisitions, 2013/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Whitfield Lovell, b. 1959, After an Afternoon, 2008, courtesy, DC Moore Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Whitfield Lovell (b. 1959), Everything, 2004, Private collection, courtesy, DC Moore Gallery/Photo by Patricia Leslie

What:  Whitfield Lovell: The Kin Series and Related Works

When: Through January 8, 2017, 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursday until 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, 12 - 7 p.m.

Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009

Admission: $12, $10 for students and those over 62, free for members and for children 18 and under. Ticket includes admission to all exhibitions on view including People on the Move: Beauty and Struggle in Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series

Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)
 
For more information: 202-387-2151


Patricialesli@gmail.com

Impressionist teacher and artist extraordinaire, William Merritt Chase, now at the Phillips

William Merritt Chase, Portrait of Dora Wheeler, 1882-1883, Cleveland Museum of Art.  A painting of one of his students, this was one Chase's early masterpieces which won an Honorable Mention at the 1883 Paris Salon and a Gold Medal at Munich's Crystal Palace exhibition.

 William Merritt Chase, The Young Orphan, c. 1884, National Academy Museum, New York.  His subject for this painting likely came from the orphan asylum located next door to Chase's Tenth Street Studio in New York.  It's reminiscent of The Artist's Mother by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, an artist Chase admired.

 William Merritt Chase, Washing Day - A Backyard Reminiscence of Brooklyn, c. 1887, from the collection of Lilly Endowment, Inc.

 William Merritt Chase, The End of the Season, c. 1884-1885, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum

 William Merritt Chase, I Think I Am Ready Now, c. 1883, private collection

 William Merritt Chase, The Tenth Street Studio, 1880, Saint Louis Art Museum. Chase's well-known studio, filled with what he loved: art, bric-a-brac, people, his Russian hound, and, on one side, there he is.

 William Merritt Chase, Sunlight and Shadow, 1884, Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha. Chase painted this in Holland where he resided during the summer at the coastal cottage of his friend and artist, Robert Blum, the man above.  Chase referred to this work as The Tift.  A partially hidden woman lies in the hammock while another one scurries away.  The Triangle?

William Merritt Chase, Self-Portrait in 4th Avenue Studio, 1915-1916, Richmond Art Museum, Indiana, completed the year he died.

William Merritt Chase, Lydia Field Emmet, 1892, Brooklyn Museum, one of his students who became "one of the foremost American woman portrait painters of the late 19th century," according to the wall copy.

All it takes to win a chance for a trip for two to Boston in celebration of the William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) exhibition now at the Phillips Collection, is a brief explanation on social media of your favorite Chase work by September 11, 2016. (See line below for details.)
 
Artist and teacher of Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Georgia O'Keeffe, Joseph Stella, John Marin, and George Bellows, among many others, William Merritt Chase is honored by the Phillips in the centenary year of his death in this first Chase retrospective in 30 years.

A must for any fan of Impressionism.

The 70 works span 40 years in an enthralling presentation which seems much larger, perhaps because it is easy to lose yourself in the paintings and get carried away.

His obituary in the Washington Times on October 26, 1916 noted his career path followed that of many artists: His father wanted him to be something else. To be like him! A retail merchant, but the son used his father's business supplies, wrapping papers, to draw sketches, and, at age 20 took off from middle America for New York.

About a year later, the ailing family business, now in St. Louis, beckoned Chase to come and help out, and he did.
 
There, art aficionados recognized his talents and, in exchange for original works, arranged training for him in Europe where he studied for several years in Munich and Italy.

Returning to the U.S. and "representing the new wave of European-educated American talent" (Wikipedia), his "first fame" came with "Keying Up"-The Court Jester (1875) which won a medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition and which viewers may see at the Phillips.

Chase etched and painted portraits, landscapes, still lifes, urban and domestic scenes using watercolor, oils, pastels, and ink. His subjects included notable persons of the era including his wife, Alice, and their eight children during his "most energetic" period. At Shinnecoke Hills, Long Island, N.Y. he was persuaded to take over an art school where he taught from 1891 to 1902, among many places. (Now his Shinnecoke home and studio are on the National Register of Historic Places.)
 
His Tenth Street Studio in New York was considered "the most famous artist's studio in America and a virtual manifesto of his and his generation's artistic practices and beliefs, and of the dignity of the artistic calling," according to a biographical sketch at the National Gallery of Art. Several of his works at the Phillips are titled Tenth Street Studio.

Chase established the Chase School, which later became Parsons The New School for Design, and for a decade (1885-1895) he was president of the Society of American Artists.

At the turn of the century he and his rival instructor, Robert Henri, were considered the nation's most important teachers of American artists.

On his death the New York Tribune on Oct. 27, 1916 called him "one of the most useful painters we ever had."  

The Terra Foundation for American Art whose mission is dedicated that of its founder, Daniel J. Terra (1911-1996) who believed "engagement with original works of art could be a transformative experience," has enabled the presentation of the Chase show at the Phillips where the Terra team succeeds!

This is the first Chase exhibition to travel abroad where it will stop in Venice in February at the International Gallery of Modern Art after a tour at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts (October, 2016 - January, 2017).
 
At the show's opening, curator Elsa Smithgall called Chase "a painter's painter."
 
Catalogues are available in the gift shop.

What: William Merritt Chase: A Modern Master
 
When: Now through September 11, 2016 (except Mondays), 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sundays, 12-7 p.m. Extended hours until 8:30 p.m. on the first Thursday of the month for separate ticketed event September 1, "Art and Play," inspired by Chase's art and Karel Appel's (another exhibition currently at the Phillips) with music by Color Palette, food and drink presented in partnership with the Embassy of the Netherlands. The Thursday events often sell out.
 
Contest! Enter the Chase Contest at the Phillips by September 11, 2016 for a chance to win a trip for two to Boston. Just mention a favorite Chase work on social media (with certain hash tags) and submit! Easy! See complete details here.

Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009
 
Tickets: $12, $10 for students and those over 62, free for members and for children 18 and under.
 
Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)

For more information: 202-387-2151


Patricialesli@gmail.com

Last weekend to see 'Gauguin to Picasso' at the Phillips

Emil Nolde (1867-1956) Gentleman and a Lady (Lady with a Fur), 1918, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Sunday will be the last day at the Phillips Collection to see 61 works hanging together for the first time in the U.S. 

The art comes from the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland and the private collections of Karl Im Obersteg (1883-1969) and Rudolf Staechelin (1881-1946) who acquired stunning impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings (1870-1939) early on by artists of Russian, Swiss, French, German, and Dutch heritages. 

Dorothy Kosinski, the director of the Phillips, is a Swiss citizen whose friendship with those in Switzerland was key to bringing the masterpieces to Washington.  

Im Obersteg and Staechelin were contemporary collectors of Duncan Phillips (1886-1966), the founder of the Phillips, all of whom saw talent and treasure in the pieces of post-war and modern translations.

 Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry Me?), 1892, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection 

Who but Picasso painted this nude below?  An abstraction of a model fondles a pillow.  It's one of four Picassos in the exhibition.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Sleeping Nude, 1934, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Below is a self portrait done by the Russian expressionist, Alexej von Jawlensky who was influenced by the mysticism of the Eastern Orthodox Church and his belief that "art is a longing for God." During World War I he joined other avant-garde artists in Switzerland where he met Im Obersteg, and the two became lifelong friends.

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941) Self-Portrait, 1911, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Alexej von Jawlensky  (1864-1941) Still Life, 1915, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Ferdinand Hodler rendered more than 100 works devoted to his companion, Valentine Godel-Darel, as she coped with illness.  He called her "a Byzantine Empress in the mosaics at Ravenna," and destroyed many he made of her because they did not "represent what I have seen."   

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) The Patient, November, 1914, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection

Marc Chagall's three 1914 "monumental" rabbi paintings are in the show, including the one below.  The label copy notes his works show the influences of his Jewish Russian heritage and his training in Paris. (Who can deny their past?) The outbreak of World War I prolonged a trip Chagall made to his homeland (of what is now Belarus), giving him opportunities to meet rabbis and beggars invited into his family's home.  Here Chagall combined them into one personality. A self-portrait he made, also in 1914, is pictured further below.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Jew in Black and White, 1914, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) The Garden of Daubigny July, 1890, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) Red Roof by the Water, 1885, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) Portrait of Regina Morgeron, 1911, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

In the self-portrait below, the label copy says Marc Chagall combined Cubism and Orphism to paint himself (in 1914 at the outbreak of World War) as though looking in a mirror. Years later after the Nazis called his work "degenerate," the artist fled to New York in 1941 where he met a dealer who sold one of Chagall's works to Duncan Phillips, the host of one of the first Chagall shows in the U.S.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Self-Portrait, 1914, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Also on the walls at the Phillips are works by Camille Pissarro, Cuno Amiet, Paul Cezanne, Andre Derain, Wassily Kandinsky, Edouard Manet, and Amedeo Modigliani.

And Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Rouault, Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon (Utrillo's mother), and Maurice de Vlaminck.

For more enjoyment of the show, a catalogue and audio cellphone tour are available.

The paintings pictured above are the ones which had the most impact on me, whether it was subject, colors, perspectives, mood, emotions, or eye contact (!), but the names of the artists had no bearing on my choices.  How do they strike you?  Go and see, and please write soon. 

What: Gauguin to Picasso:  Masterworks from Switzerland -  The Staechelin and Im Obersteg Collections

When: Now through January 10, 2016, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Sunday, 12 - 7 p.m.


Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009

Tickets: $12, $10 for students and those over 62, free for members and for children 18 and under.

Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)

For more information: 202-387-2151

Patricialesli@gmail.com

Phillips' photo show ends this weekend

Louis Faurer, Broadway, New York, N.Y., between 1949 and 1950, printed later. Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 in. Gift of Jerri Mattare, 2013. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC 

Street scenes, modernism, and documentary works are among the 130 photographs by 33 artists which are on view through this weekend in American Moments: Photographs from The Phillips Collection.

It's a modern American history lesson told in pictures, capturing everyday people at work and play.

Louis Faurer, Times Square, New York, N.Y. [Woman with Umbrella], c. 1948. Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 in. Gift of Randy Kohls, 2013. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

 Esther Bubley, Girls Entertaining Their Guests, Card Room, Women’s Residence (Arlington, VA), 1943. Gelatin silver print, 10 3/8 x 10 3/8 in. Gift of Kenneth Polin, 2014. The Phillips Collection, 

 Washington, DC 

Some of the artists whose works are included are Harry Callahan, Paul Strand, Margaret Bourke-White, Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Brett Weston, Edward Weston, Lewis Hine, William Christenberry, Bruce Davidson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and Lee Friedlander.

They photographed more than just the bigger cities and New York.

 

Clarence John Laughlin, Grandeur and Decay No. 1, 1944. Gelatin silver print, 13 3/8 x 10 5/8 in. Acquired from the artist, 1945. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

 

Arnold Newman, Marcel Duchamp, 1942, printed later. Gelatin silver print, 20  x 16 in. Gift of Lisa Finn, 2012. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Esther Bubley (1921-1998), a "people photographer," who, early in her career,  quickly abandoned a  job at Vogue because she didn't like it, traveled the world, taking pictures for Life magazine, Ladies Home Journal, and for the federal government's Office of War Information, among many employers.

She documented everyday scenes, and a series of her pictures at the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital led to her inclusion in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1952.

Two years later Bubley became the first woman to win first place in competition at Photography magazine, winning a trophy which featured a male photographer. 

Another woman included in the Phillips' display is Berenice Abbott (1898-1991), known for her stark black and white shots of New York City in the 1930s.  

Is it true that the works of most great artists stem from miserable childhoods?  

Ms. Abbott credited hers for her independence, self reliance, and determination, according to the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum where she was inducted in 2000.  The museum notes her achievements "are wider ranging that anyone else's in the history of American photography."  

The Phillips presents the exhibition "in celebration of recent major gifts," many on view for the first time at the museum.

What: American Moments:  Photographs from the Phillips Collection

When: Now through September 13, 2015, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., with extended hours on Thursday until 8:30 p.m., and Sunday, 12 - 7 p.m.


Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009

Tickets: $12, $10 for students and those over 62, free for members and for children 18 and under.

Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)

For more information: 202-387-2151

Patricialesli@gmail.com

Phillips' masterworks all 'Made in the USA'

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Sunday, 1926, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

One of the biggest and best of any show I can recall at the Phillips is on display through August 31 which presents 125 artists, 120 years (1850-1970) and 200+ paintings that have just returned "home" from a four year "world tour" seen by 300,000 people.

Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Washington Arch, Spring, 1890, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.  In 1966 Duncan Phillips donated one of his Childe Hassam's to an auction benefitting the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Duncan Phillips (1886-1966), the founder of the Phillips Collection, personally knew many of the artists whose pieces he selected for inclusion in his museum, many "on the verge" before their creations were recognized as the masterpieces they have become and which now hang on three floors in Made in the U.S.A.

Isabel Bishop (1902-1988), Lunch Counter, 1940, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Mr. Phillips insisted that his showcase, "America's first museum of modern art," become "a champion for America's own artists," and from its opening in 1921, its reputation and collection have grown to fulfill his dream, demonstrated by this stunning display. 

Guy Pene de Bois (1884-1958), The Arrivals, 1918 or early 1919, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Mixed in with the names of familiar artists in the array are lesser knowns, too: Doris Lee, Marjorie Acker Phillips, David Hare, and Morris Louis join Rockwell Kent, Winslow Homer, Maurice Prendergast, Georgia O'Keeffe, Max Weber, George Inness, Robert Henri,  Grandma Moses, Anne Goldthwaite, Robert Motherwell, and Sam Gilliam, to name some whose works hang in the show in chronological order according to 12 themes.

Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), Miss Amelia Van Buren, c. 1891, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.  Because of his insistence on working with nude models, Mr. Eakins was forced to resign from the Pennsylvania Academy.  The Art Institute of Chicago rejected Miss Amelia Van Buren because it was considered "too realistic" for the public.  When hearing this, Duncan Phillips rushed to acquire it from the owner, Amelia Van Buren.

It's the biggest presentation the Phillips has mounted in almost 40 years, well worth a visit(s) long before it closes.  You know how treacherous these big shows can be at the end, with everyone elbowing, pushing and blocking views.  (And please call for rescue should you want to stand back and have a look.)

Ben Shahn (1898-1969), Still Music, 1948, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

You may want to go on a day or evening of a related event.  (Please read below.*)

The exhibition has so much to see and think about, from jazz, to portraits, oblique, abstract, modern, realism, and maybe you are a romantic?

George Bellows (1882-1925), Emma at the Window, 1920, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.  Between 1911 and 1924, Mr. Bellows painted 11 portraits of his wife, Emma.

Seeing the art may make you smarter, too. 

An article in last week's Wall Street Journal proves what many of us already know: "Our Brains Are Made for Enjoying Art."  The story describes research conducted by the University of Toronto which documents brain activity and the benefits humans obtain from viewing art.  So, in addition to practical enjoyment from viewing the paintings, you may be able to stave off Alzheimer's disease.  Which might be considered a brain stretch, but, why not?  Just another reason to go and take pleasure.

Seymour Lipton (1903-1986), Ancestor, 1958, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.  Mr. Lipton originally trained as a dentist.  On the wall to the left of Ancestor is a portion of The Seer, 1950, by Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974), The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

An interactive program, "uCurate," is included in the show (and can be activated from your home by accessing the Phillips' website) which permits guests to design their own art galleries using three touch screens and pieces from the presentation.

Ilya Bolotowsky (1907-1981), Abstraction, 1940, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.  This and another one by Mr. Bolotowsky, who was a native of St. Petersburg, Russia and a founding member of American Abstract Artists, were the first to enter a museum. 

I can't wait to get back to set my brain aglow all over again.  There, I think I have well said enough.  It is, indeed, difficult to contain my enthusiasm.  

Stuart Davis (1892-1964), Blue Cafe, 1928, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

A catalogue of almost 300 pages is available for purchase in the shop and online. Major sponsors are Altria and the Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts.

Walt Kuhn (1877-1949), Plumes, 1931, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.  The first Kuhn solo show in Washington was at the Phillips.  Mr. Kuhn was a co-organizer of the 1913 Armory Show.

 

Rockwell Kent (1882-1971), Burial of a Young Man, c. 1908-11, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. Duncan Phillips purchased this in 1918 amidst the tragedies of World War I and the death of his brother from influenza in the same year.

John Sloan (1871-1951), Clown Making Up, 1910, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. This is the first Sloan painting to enter a museum.

 

*Related tours, talks, performances, and musical events include: 

Sold out: June 26, 5:30 p.m. reception, 6:30 p.m. performance of the New York Idea by the Picnic Theatre Company (Fee.  Reservations required.)

June 26, 6 and 7 p.m. "Spotlight Tours" of the exhibition.  Included in exhibition admission price.

June 29, 11 a.m. Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon, Wikimedia, D.C. Bring your laptop and become a writer about the show's artists for Wikipedia!  Free but registration is required.

Every Sunday at noon a tour of the exhibition with a docent (Included in the exhibition admission price.)

July 3, 5 - 8:30 p.m. Phillips After 5, "Happy Birthday America" with music by Charlie Sayles, Tony Fazio, and the Blues Disciples, gallery talks and make your own postcard art activities. Reservations highly recommended except for members who are always admitted without charge. (Fee for others.)

July 10, 6:30 p.m. Isadora Duncan Dance by the Word Dance Theatre (Fee. Reservations required.)

July 24, 6:30 p.m. Lecture by Elizabeth Hutton Turner, professor of modern art at the University of Virginia, "Reinventing Space:  Calder, Davis, and Graham." (Included in the exhibition admission price.  Free for members.)

July 31, 6:30 p.m. Vocal Colors:  A Musical Exploration of Visual Art with soprano Melinda Whittington and mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sproule of the Wolf Trap Opera Company  presented in collaboration with the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts (Fee. Reservations required.)

August 7, 5 - 8:30 p.m. Phillips After 5.  American Bounty.  Gallery talks and sample classic American cuisine "through a moveable feast of food trucks." (?  Call for more information and to make highly recommended reservations, 202-387-2151. Fee except for members, no charge.)

August 14, 6:30 p.m. Lecture by Sally Pemberton about her grandfather, Murdock Pemberton (1888 - 1982), the first art critic for the New Yorker who said Mr. Murdock "may be the most interesting person you've never heard of."  He wrote often about the development of American modernism, and Ms. Pemberton has written a book about him, Portrait of Murdock Pemberton.

August 14, 21, and 28, 6 and 7 p.m. "Spotlight Tours" of the exhibition.  Included in exhibition admission price.

What: Made in the U.S.A.: American Masters from the Phillips Collection, 1850 - 1970

When: Now through August 31, 2014. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. with extended hours on Thursdays until 8:30 p.m., and Sundays, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Closed on July 4.

Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009

Tickets: $12, $10 for students and those over 62, free for members and for children 18 and under.

The Phillips is a Blue Star Museum, offering free admission for all active duty military personnel and their families through Labor Day.

Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)

For more information: 202-387-2151

Patricialesli@gmail.com
 

Vincent van Gogh leaves Washington Sunday

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Entrance to the Public Gardens at Arles, 1888. The Phillips Collection.  This painting is one of the first van Goghs acquired by an American museum (1930).

Where else can you find 30 Vincent van Goghs together in the U.S. other than at The Phillips Collection, where they are set to depart Sunday, Super Vincent Day?

It is the first van Gogh (1853-1890) exhibition in 15 years in Washington, the first at The Phillips, and the first anywhere to focus on his "repetitions," the word he used to call his different versions of the same subject.  They are on loan from collections around the world, juxtaposed to make changes from one to the next easier to view, detect, and discuss.

Who knew the master painted so many of the same subject?

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), The Postman Joseph Roulin, February-March, 1889.  Collection, Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo.

 

If you saw the Yes, No, Maybe exhibition which closed last month at the National Gallery of Art, you got a glimpse of  dilemmas and decisions artists face and make and the number of times they re-work results.  The theme of Van Gogh Repetitions, is to "examine how and why [van Gogh] repeated certain compositions," says The Phillips. 

Visitors will observe the evolutions of 13 repetitions with adaptations noted in shapes, positions, colors, and facial expressions.

The man whose career only spanned a decade before he died, did not hurriedly slosh paint upon the canvas outdoors, a mental picture many van Gogh fans may share:  There he is, standing in the fields with brush and easel along a dusty road, amidst the tall sunflowers wearing a hat with a large brim to shield his already-sunburned head from the sun and heat. Repetitions "shows how the artist was also methodical and controlled." 

The display opens with The Road Menders (1899) from The Phillips and another version on the adjacent wall painted in the same year, The Large Plane Trees, on loan from the Cleveland Museum of Art.  Stand and compare the two and note variations.   Which do you think he painted first?  Are the styles the same?  Does one have brighter colors?  More life?

Drawn from The Phillips' collection in the second gallery are paintings by artists who influenced van Gogh, who had personal connections to many: Delacroix, whom van Gogh called "the greatest colorist of all," Seurat, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Daumier, Millet, Rembrandt, and, of course, Gauguin, are some. Van Gogh copied many of them and built a personal print collection of 3,000 images which he used as basis for his own productions. 

From there to the next, to the next gallery, the paintings flow, a vast van Gogh bliss for followers.
 
One version of three of The Bedroom at Arles (1889)  (yes, it is that bedroom, the one which immediately leaps to mind) is included.  Text reveals van Gogh made all the walls in each Bedroom violet, however, time has turned some of the reds into blue walls.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), The Bedroom at Arles, October, 1889. Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

 

Six works of Postman Joseph Roulin from 1888-1889 are included.  Notable for its sharp contrasts from all the rest is the Winterthur version done when Paul Gauguin was visiting van Gogh, urged by his temporary housemate to become bolder, more abstract, and modern.

That rendition looks unlike the van Goghs you know, and the stilted subject sits in a weird way with his head tilted and his eyes seemingly focused on separate points, its exceptions extreme in a garish way, almost a character from a haunting novel.

Only one of Joseph Roulin is signed, the Barnes' Roulin, which The Phillips calls "the most naturalistic" of three done in 1889, and it is that one which appears to be the most popular, one I know well, a print of it purchased long ago somewhere that now hangs in my bedroom.  

The postman was a friend to van Gogh, helping and visiting the artist when he was in the hospital at Arles.  Van Gogh loved the Roulin family and painted individual portraits of all the family members, all found in the presentation.

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Lullaby:  Madame Augustine Roulin Rocking a Cradle (La Berceuse), February-March, 1889. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of John T. Spaulding

 

Accompanying the show is a catalogue published by Yale University Press with 125 color illustrations and available at the shop or online.  Preparation and research for Repetitions began eight years ago.  A cell phone tour provides more information.

If you miss Repetitions  at The Phillips, you may travel to Cleveland where it will be staged from March 2 - May 26, 2014.  The Phillips and the Cleveland Museum of Art organized the show.  The Musee d'Orsay was a major lender, and Lockheed Martin, a major sponsor.

What:  Van Gogh Repetitions

When:  Now through February 2, 2014.  Saturday, from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Where:  The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C.  20009

Tickets:  $12, $10 for those over 62, and free for members always, for children 18 and under, and for students (with I.D.).   Advance ticket purchase, highly recommended since tickets are timed.

Metro Station:  Dupont Circle (Q Street exit.  Turn left and walk one block.) 

For more information:  202-387-2151

Patricialesli@gmail.com