The Phillips Collection Presents Where We Meet, Selections from Its Permanent Collection and the Howard University Gallery of Art
Installation coincides with Howard University’s 34th James A. Porter Colloquium; the Phillips to host day two of colloquium proceedings on April 5.
WASHINGTON, DC—The Phillips Collection presents Where We Meet: Selections from the Howard University Gallery of Art and The Phillips Collection, a special installation that reflects the collaborative relationship between two storied Washington, DC, institutions over the past century. Co-organized by The Phillips Collection and the Howard University Gallery of Art, the installation coincides with Howard University’s 34th James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora, April 4-6, 2024. The Phillips will host day two of the colloquium on Friday, April 5. Where We Meet is on view from April 5 through August 15, 2024, in the Phillips’s Second Floor, House Galleries.
Since the Howard University Gallery of Art opened under the directorship of James A. Porter in 1930, the Phillips and Howard have collaborated through loan exchanges and programming that promoted the city’s vibrant arts community. Where We Meet includes works by artists acquired early in the life of both institutions, including distinguished Howard University professors Loïs Mailou Jones and James Lesesne Wells, whose Journey to Egypt (1931) became the first work by an African American artist to join The Phillips Collection and one of the first paintings by an African American artist to be acquired by a major Washington museum.
Featured are seminal artists from each institution, such as Albert Pinkham Ryder and Arthur Dove for the Phillips, and Wifredo Lam and Elizabeth Catlett for Howard, as well as artists who have been vital to cultural life in Washington and beyond including David Driskell, Alma Thomas, and Jacob Lawrence. The installation reflects the Phillips’s and Howard’s overlapping histories, revealing an early and evolving relationship developed through a common interest in collecting, stewardship, and providing access to art.
THE 34TH JAMES A. PORTER COLLOQUIUM
Hosted by The Phillips Collection, the Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, The Howard Gallery of Art, and the Department of Art in Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, the 34th James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art and Art of the African Diaspora seeks to highlight new scholarship on the history of art at Howard University. Featuring the theme Art Legacies & Aesthetic Futures: Art at Howard, colloquium proceedings will explore historical and contemporary institutional partnerships that have made Howard an anchor in the American art landscape.
Spanning three days, day two of the Porter Colloquium will take place at The Phillips Collection for in-person and live-streamed programming. Speakers include 2023 James A. Porter Book Award Honoree Rebecca Van Diver, PhD, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture, Vanderbilt University; Edward T. Welburn, automobile designer and former General Motors’ Vice President of Global Design; Phylicia Rashad, Dean of the Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts, Howard University, and many more.
IMAGE: Loïs Mailou Jones, Jennie, 1943, Oil on canvas, 36 × 28 1/2 in., Howard University Gallery of Art
IMAGE GALLERY High-resolution press images are available upon request. Please contact lcantrell@phillipscollection.org.
ABOUT THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION
The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, was founded in 1921. The museum houses one of the world’s most celebrated Impressionist and American modern art collections and continues to grow its collection with important contemporary voices. Its distinctive building combines extensive new galleries with the former home of its founder, Duncan Phillips. The Phillips’s impact spreads nationally and internationally through its diverse and experimental special exhibitions and events, including its award-winning education programs for educators, students, and adults; renowned Phillips Music series; and dynamic art and wellness and Phillips after 5 events. The Phillips Collection’s extensive community partnerships include Phillips@THEARC, the museum’s satellite campus in Southeast DC. The Phillips Collection is a private, non-government museum, supported primarily by donations.