Curating Collections
Most of the artworks you used today were featured in The Phillips Collection’s centennial exhibition Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century.
Drawn from its growing collection of nearly 6,000 works, Seeing Differently highlights over 200 works by artists from the 19th century to the present, including paintings, works on paper, prints, photographs, sculptures, quilts, and videos. The exhibition explores the complexities of our ever-changing world through themes of identity, history, place, and the senses—with special focus on recent acquisitions that showcase how the museum’s dynamic collection continues to evolve.
Guided by Duncan Phillips’s belief in the universal language of art as a unifying force for social change, the exhibition presents juxtapositions that connect artists past and present across national, racial, and gender lines.
What's missing?
While most of the exhibition artworks were acquired in the past decade, they are shown in conjunction with artworks that have been collected throughout the past 100 years, to reveal the trajectory of the Phillips’s ever-changing and growing collection.
Contemporary artist Bernhard Hildebrandt provides a 21st-century interpretation (left) of El Greco’s 17th-century The Repentant St. Peter (right), acquired by Duncan Phillips in 1922. Hildebrandt starts from El Greco’s painting and employs digital photography.
Installation View, Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century, 2021, Photo: Lee Stalsworth
Installation View, Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century, 2021, Photo: Lee Stalsworth
The Phillips Collection acquired Aimé Mpane’s Mapasa (middle) in 2012, followed by Maman Calcule (right) in 2020. These contemporary portraits are paired with Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 portrait Elena Povolozky (left), acquired in 1949.
Installation View, Seeing Differently: The Phillips Collects for a New Century, 2021, Photo: Lee Stalsworth