American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection exhibition records

Curatorial records in this record group document the research, accompanying catalogue, and planning and activities of staff during 2005 to 2010 for the exhibition entitled American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection, assembled by Susan Behrends Frank, Assistant Curator, under the directorship of Jay Gates. Organized by The Phillips Collection, the show opened at the museum on June 16, 2007, and remained on view through September 16, 2007.

The exhibit then travelled to seven other cities between the fall of 2007 and early 2010, providing outreach to community venues across the country. A national tour of American Impressionism was made possible by the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), as part of their “American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artist Genius” program. Additional support for the exhibition was provided by the Phillips Contemporaries and Lockheed Martin, the 2006- 2007 season sponsor of The Phillips Collection.

The exhibition highlighted the beginning of America’s love affair with impressionism with a view of the American artists that Phillips championed. In addition to showcasing works by first-generation “mature” masters of the style such as Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and William Lathrop, there were paintings by Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, Gifford Beal, Helen Turner, and others. Focused largely on landscape painting, the exhibition included some of the most treasured paintings from the museum’s earliest days. Phillips was fascinated by the painters’ personal response to the native landscape of familiar places and most of the works were painted in Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, eastern Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts, the epicenter of American impressionism. The show’s wall text, which incorporated historical photographic images and a map, provided the viewer with information on the various art colonies where these artists lived and worked, particularly during the summer months, places such as the Weir family farm in Branchville (Connecticut), and colonies in Old Lyme (Connecticut), Cornish (New Hampshire), New Hope (Pennsylvania), and Gloucester (Massachusetts), and Long Island at Southampton (New York). This aspect of the show, complemented by the research files found in series 1 of this record group, may be among the most valuable scholarly resources for the user.

Promotional materials for the exhibition featured Gifford Beal’s painting On the Hudson at Newburgh (1918), first discovered in 1999 by Phillips conservators to be hidden beneath the canvas of another Beal work entitled Parade of Elephants (1924) that Duncan Phillips acquired in 1924. Considered a “signature image” by curator Frank, it was among the show’s few paintings portraying urban subjects and modern life. Documentation about this painting’s discovery can be found in subseries 3.1under public programs and press clippings, and in the research file (subseries 1.2) for Beal. The show also showcased the work of a less well know artist, Allen Tucker, whose paintings Red Barns and The Rise were acquired by Duncan Phillips in 1926-1927, admired for their robust brushstrokes, at a time when Phillips had sought to add an original van Gogh to his growing collection.