MAJOR NEW EXHIBITION CELEBRATES AMERICAN IDENTITY, INGENUITY, AND SPIRIT
Made in the USA is the most comprehensive presentation of the museum’s American art in nearly 40 years
Washington, D.C.—After winning acclaim and record attendance on a four-year tour, The Phillips Collection’s renowned collection of American masterworks returns to the museum in a landmark exhibition. Made in the USA is on view at the Phillips from March 1 through August 31, 2014.
The most comprehensive presentation of the museum’s American art collection undertaken in nearly 40 years, Made in the USA showcases more than 200 masterpieces—from romantic seascapes and jazzy city scenes to abstract canvases and boldly colored portraits—by more than 125 artists whose new visual language made American art an international sensation.
Founder Duncan Phillips was a lifelong champion of the nation’s cultural diversity. His commitment to collecting works by America’s living artists who showed great promise—whether they were native or foreign-born, artists of color, self-taught or academically trained, male or female—was decidedly against the grain between the wars and propelled The Phillips Collection to be a leader in American art.
“It was this ‘fusion of various sensitivities’ and ‘unification of differences,’ as Phillips described it, that was something to celebrate,” said Susan Behrends Frank, Associate Curator at The Phillips Collection. “The Phillips’s American collection is more than just an assemblage of great names; its strength lies in its rich diversity and multiplicity of American voices that Duncan Phillips brought together over a lifetime.”
Organized chronologically as a thematic narrative about American art from the late 19th century through the postwar years, the exhibition aims to demonstrate how artists with fresh vision and independent spirit captured modern American life.
“Not since 1976 has The Phillips Collection presented such a mesmerizing showcase of Duncan Phillips’s treasures. Made in the USA presents a rare opportunity to view our permanent collection displayed in what could best be described as a story with many chapters. The 12 themes, from ‘Realism and Romanticism’ to ‘The City’ to ‘Memory and Identity,’ serve as a walk through time, and echo a compelling narrative about our country’s history and cultural development,” said Dorothy Kosinski, director of The Phillips Collection.
The exhibition explores a diverse array of subjects and periods through painting, drawing, and etching. Highlights include Rockwell Kent’s The Road Roller; Horace Pippin’s Domino Players; Allen Tucker’s The Rise; Edward Hopper’s Sunday; Stefan Hirsch’s New York, Lower Manhattan; John Marin’s Pertaining to Fifth Avenue and Forty-Second Street; Arthur Dove’s Red Sun; and Willem De Kooning’s Asheville.
CATALOGUE
Made in the U.S.A: American Art from The Phillips Collection, 1850–1970
Edited by Susan Behrends Frank; with an essay by Eliza E. Rathbone
276 pages
Available this spring for $29.95 in the museum shop and online at shop.phillipscollection.org.
SPONSOR
The exhibition is organized by The Phillips Collection.
The exhibition is presented by Altria
Generous support is provided by The Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz Foundation for the Arts.
Brought to you by the Made in the USA Committee: The Lichtenberg Family Foundation and Linda Lichtenberg Kaplan, B. Thomas Mansbach, Dr. and Mrs. Ronald A. Paul, and Dina and George Perry
EXHIBITION-RELATED EVENTS
Thursday, Feb. 27 (6:30 p.m.): Poetry reading. Tina Chang and Maurice Manning read from their works in response to Made in the USA. In collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Library’s O.B. Hardison Poetry Series.
Thursday, March 6 (5-8:30 p.m.): Phillips after 5, Mad Museum: The American 60s. Inspired by the American 1960s, sample classic cocktails while viewing works by Washington Color School and Abstract Expressionist artists. Tiffany & Co. sponsors a Breakfast at Tiffany’s inspired photo booth and the museum screens a 2008 episode of Mad Men centered on a Mark Rothko painting.
Thursday, March 13 (6:30 p.m.): Curator’s Perspective. Made in the USA curator Susan Frank discusses the insights gained by looking thematically at American art from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century, when American art became internationally recognized.
Saturday, March 29 (2 p.m.): Screening of Edward Hopper and the Blank Canvas. This documentary examines Hopper’s work, revealing the social context for his art and his influence on international filmmakers like Wim Wenders and Alfred Hitchcock. 2012, 52 minutes, dir. Jean-Pierre Devillers.
Thursday, April 3 (5-8:30 p.m.): Phillips after 5, Suppress the Depression: The American 30s. Try your hand at popular entertainment from the time including Sorry!, Scrabble, Chutes and Ladders, and speed Monopoly, and view classic Disney shorts.
Thursday, April 17 (6:30 p.m.): Art Song Discovery: Made in the USA. Soprano Natalie Conte and baritone Matthew Morris, 2013 winners of the Vocal Arts DC’s Art Song Discovery Competition, pair artworks in the exhibition with musical excepts evocative of similar moods. $20; $8 members.
Thursday, May 1 (5-8:30 p.m.): Phillips after 5, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition: The American 20s. Sample bootleg-inspired food and drink and watch magic demonstrations that pay homage to Houdini. Complete a scavenger hunt to reveal the password and access to the secret speakeasy.
Thursday, June 5 (5-8:30 p.m.): Phillips after 5, Summer in the City: The American 50s. Listen to 50s jazz while beatnik poets match verse with paintings from Made in the USA. Sample classic American diner food from partner Shake Shack, and vote for your favorite exhibition inspired custard.
Saturday and Sunday, June 7–June 8: Jazz ‘n Family Fun Days. The Phillips’s annual free weekend features live jazz performances throughout the museum, including musicians improvising to paintings in the galleries. Create jazz-inspired art to take home and visit the instrument petting zoo. Part of the annual Dupont-Kalorama Museum Walk Weekend. In collaboration with DC Jazz Festival.
Thursday, June 12 (6:30 p.m.): Duncan Phillips Lecture. In December 1934, Duncan Phillips hosted a luncheon in Gertrude Stein’s honor during which the two art collectors clashed over the value of American art. Dr. Wanda Corn, renowned scholar of transatlantic modernism, decodes the Phillips-Stein altercation, rooting it in the larger Franco-American debate as to what constituted an authentic national art.
Thursday, June 19 (6:30 p.m.): Vocal Colors: A Musical Exploration of Visual Art. Soprano Tracy Cox and tenor Robert Watson of the Wolf Trap Opera Company respond to artwork in Made in the USA. In collaboration with the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.
Thursday, July 3 (5-8:30 p.m.): Phillips after 5, Happy Birthday America. Celebrate Independence Day with Made in the USA gallery talks and art activities.
Thursday, July 31 (6:30 p.m.): Vocal Colors: A Musical Exploration of Visual Art. Soprano Melinda Whittington and mezzo-soprano Carolyn Sproule of the Wolf Trap Opera Company respond to artwork in Made in the USA. In collaboration with the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.
Thursday, Aug. 7 (5-8:30 p.m.): Phillips after 5, American Bounty. Sample classic American cuisine through a moveable feast of food trucks.
Thursday, Aug. 14 (6:30 p.m.): Lecture: Portrait of Murdock Pemberton. Murdock Pemberton, the first art critic of The New Yorker, wrote countless exposes of museums, collectors, and galleries that documented the development of American modernism. His granddaughters Sally Pemberton—who recently published a compendium of his writings—shares Murdock’s colorful stories, including his role in a public dispute between Duncan Phillips and Alfred Stieglitz.