backstory: A beneficent force
Earlier this month, Dorothy Kosinski, director of the Phillips Collection in Washington DC, published an Op-Ed in ArtNews entitled “This Art Museum Was Founded in Response to a Pandemic Death. It Has Much to Teach Us Now.”
She observed in the piece that, “Nearly a century ago, in 1921, Duncan Phillips established the Phillips Memorial Gallery, a place of solace and a memorial to his father who died in 1917 and brother, James Laughlin Phillips, who succumbed to the Spanish influenza epidemic in 1918. The museum was founded on the principles of the deep connection between art and wellness, with Duncan Phillips determined to create a collection of art for the community.”
The Op-Ed caught my eye not only because of the way in which it reminds us of the importance of art in times of crisis, what Phillips referred to as “a beneficent force,” but also because of the deep connection between the Phillips Collection and the Neuberger Museum of Art. Duncan Phillips was one of Roy R. Neuberger’s greatest influences. As Roy wrote in his 2003 memoir, “From the moment I met him, he was my artistic mentor, the collector I looked up to more than any other.” I do not know if Roy was aware of Phillips’ original intention for his museum, but what is certain is that the ways in which his mentor collected and shared his collection with others—his eye and his philosophy—directly and deeply impacted the founding of the Neuberger Museum of Art and the ways in which we approach our work here today.
You can read the Op-Ed here.
The Op-Ed caught my eye not only because of the way in which it reminds us of the importance of art in times of crisis, what Phillips referred to as “a beneficent force,” but also because of the deep connection between the Phillips Collection and the Neuberger Museum of Art. Duncan Phillips was one of Roy R. Neuberger’s greatest influences. As Roy wrote in his 2003 memoir, “From the moment I met him, he was my artistic mentor, the collector I looked up to more than any other.” I do not know if Roy was aware of Phillips’ original intention for his museum, but what is certain is that the ways in which his mentor collected and shared his collection with others—his eye and his philosophy—directly and deeply impacted the founding of the Neuberger Museum of Art and the ways in which we approach our work here today.
You can read the Op-Ed here.
Tracy Fitzpatrick
Director
Neuberger Museum of Art