The Phillips Announces 2018 Annual Gala with Embassy of Australia
WASHINGTON—Director Dorothy Kosinski, Chairman Dani Levinas, the Board of Trustees, and Gala Hosts Kay and Sonny Kapoor are pleased to announce The Phillips Collection’s Annual Gala will be held on Friday, May 4, 2018. Serving as 2018 Diplomatic Chair is His Excellency the Honorable Joe Hockey, Australian Ambassador to the United States, and Ms. Melissa Babbage.
The Annual Gala, Marks Made: Ancestral Lands under Australian Skies, celebrates Australian Aboriginal culture. This summer The Phillips Collection will present Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, which features the work of nine leading artists.
The evening coincides with the Contemporaries Bondi Beach Bash— inspired by Sydney’s world-famous beach, a sensational night of cocktails, music, food, fashion, and dancing, that brings the Australian waterfront city’s surf culture to Dock 5 at Union Market. The Bash is a sell-out event that attracts over 700 of the city’s most well connected and philanthropic young professionals.
SUPPORTING ARTS EDUCATION
The Annual Gala and Contemporaries Bash raise critical resources for the museum’s award-winning educational programs that forward K-12 education reform, art and wellness, and lifelong learning in the Washington, DC, community, across the country, and globally. These initiatives include the development of Prism.K12 to encourage art and wellness integrated curricula across the community through Phillips@THEARC, a partnership with arts and education center THEARClocated in DC’s Ward 8.
CELEBRATION OF AUSTRALIAN ARTS AND CULTURE
Founder Duncan Phillips was known for being of “an international mind” and although Australian Aboriginal art was not yet on his horizon, the sense of community and universal language rooted in the symbolic nature of the art would have resonated with Phillips’s artistic passions. Marking the Infinite: Contemporary Women Artists from Aboriginal Australia, features the work of nine leading artists: Nongirrnga Marawili, Wintjiya Napaltjarri, Yukultji Napangati, Angelina Pwerle, Lena Yarinkura, Gulumbu Yununpingu, Nyapanyapa Yunupingu, Carlene West, and Regina Pilawuk Wilson. The Phillips Collection is pleased to invite one of the nine artists, Regina Pilawuk Wilson, to travel to the United States and paint a mural in the museum’s courtyard.
The exhibition is organized by the Nevada Museum of Art and the works are drawn from the collection of Miami-based collectors and philanthropists Debra and Dennis Scholl. The selection has been carefully curated by the Scholls, in conjunction with Australian curator and art historian Henry F. Skerritt, with many key works commissioned specifically for the exhibition.
2018 HONOREES
The Phillips’s Annual Gala provides a platform to acknowledge individuals who play critical roles in promoting and supporting arts education. This year, the museum recognizes the invaluable contributions and impact of philanthropists Debra and Dennis Scholl who have lead the collection and distribution of Australian Aboriginal art in the United States.
The Phillips will also be recognizing Senator Roy Blunt and Senator Ed Markey as the Gala’s Congressional Honorees for their work to support education and a strong Australia-United States relationship. The Phillips Collection is also pleased to announce Mirella Levinas as the 2018 Gala Honorary Chair.
The Phillips Collection expresses gratitude to all 2018 Annual Gala supporters:
2018 GALA HOST
Kay and Sonny Kapoor
2018 GALA CO-CHAIRS
Altria Group
Bloomberg Philanthropies
Chevron | Maria Pica Karp
Lockheed Martin Corporation | Nancy Ziuzin Schlegel University of Maryland
George Vradenburg and the Vradenburg Foundation
2018 GALA BENEFACTORS
Julie and Jon Garcia | Lisa Barry and James Gale iHeartMedia, Inc. | Jessica Marventano
Total Wine & More
2018 GALA CHAMPIONS
Accenture
Arent Fox LLP and JM Zell Partners, LTD
Capital One Bank | George Swygert and Lori Jenkins
Citi
Kiddar Capital | Todd Hitt
Occidental Petroleum
Dr. and Mrs. Ronald A. Paul
Embassy of the State of Qatar
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas D. Rutherfoord, Jr.
Left to right: Mirella and Dani Levinas
Mildred B. Smith, PhD
Andrea and Steve Strawn
WC Smith
As of 3/19/2018
2018 GALA HONORARY CHAIR
Mirella Levinas
2018 GALA COMMITTEE
Lisa Barry Marcy Cohen Barbara Hall
MEDIA COVERAGE
Barbara Hawthorn Lori Jenkins
Jessica Marventano
John D. Mason
The Honorable Ann Stock