The Phillips Collection Earns $1M Grant in Support of the Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s support will provide leadership to the Phillips’s expanded academic programs and curatorial projects.

Washington, DC—The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded a $1 million dollar grant to The Phillips Collection, to be spent over approximately six years. The grant will provide continued support to the museum’s position of Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art and Curator at Large.

Dr. Klaus Ottmann, a noted scholar of contemporary art, art theory, and the philosophy of art, has held the position of Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art and Curator at Large since it was newly defined in 2010 to provide leadership to the museum’s expanded academic programs and curatorial projects. Launched with funding from the Mellon Foundation, the position was conceived to guide the academic functions across the museum and to realize more fully the Phillips’s long history of interdisciplinary exchange and scholarship. Dr. Ottmann’s role has proven critical to the development and success of the Center for the Study of Modern Art as a link for academic work, scholarly exchange, and innovative collaborations within the museum and beyond.

“This position has enabled the Phillips to broaden our intellectual community through partnerships with universities and outside scholars in a variety of disciplines,” says Director Dorothy Kosinski, “it has fostered untraditional collaborations across departments, helping transform the intellectual fabric of the institution as more inclusive, community-minded, and risk-taking.”

Established in 2007, the Center for the Study of Modern Art was designed to extend the legacy of Duncan Phillips in new ways. An incubator for ideas, the Center is a vehicle for expanding the Phillips’s scholarly work and reaching new, global audiences through sustained inquiry of the subject of modern and contemporary art. Through the Mellon Foundation’s support, the Phillips has tested a new model for curatorial and academic leadership, one that re-envisions the traditional museum structure for one that is nimble, creative, risk-taking, and collaborative. This model has allowed the Phillips to establish relationships with several universities, including George Washington University, University of Virginia, New York University, and Georgetown University.

“The Center fosters a collaborative, partnership based environment of curatorial and intellectual prowess,” says Kosinski, “and we are pleased to receive the continued support of the Mellon Foundation.”

The Mellon Foundation’s continued support will allow Dr. Ottmann and The Phillips Collection to continue a mission envisioned by Duncan Phillips himself, fostering a dynamic environment for collaboration, innovation, engagement with the world, scholarship, and new forms of public participation.