The Phillips Collects: Anna Walinska

The Phillips Collection is excited to welcome into the collection two paintings by Anna Walinska: Self-Portrait (c. 1950) and Odalisque & Friend (1951). 

A prolific American artist and indefatigable promoter of the art of her contemporaries, Walinska was engaged in vanguard activities in New York and Paris. Her work and life story span the 20th century and three continents. This generous gift comes to the Phillips from the artist’s estate and her niece, Rosina Rubin. Anna Walinska (1906-1997) enrolled at the Art Students League in 1918 at the age of 12. In 1926, she went to Paris to study with André Lhote and exhibited at the Salon des Independents. In 1935 Walinska became a curator for the Federal Art Project and founded the Guild Art Gallery in New York City at 37 West 57th Street, where she gave Arshile Gorky his first New York solo show. Her works are in the collection of the Jewish Museum, New York; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; and the Denver Art Museum.