Art News

The Frist Center for the Visual Arts to Show Masterworks From the Phillips Collection

artwork: Arthur G. Dove - "Red Sun", 1935 - Oil on canvas - 20 1/4" x 28" - The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. On view in "To See as Artists See: American Art from the Phillips Collection" at the Frist Center, Nashville from February 3rd until May 6th 2012.


Nashville, Tennessee.- The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is proud to present “To See as Artists See: American Art from the Phillips Collection ” on view in the museum’s Ingram Gallery from February 3rd through May 6th 2012. Founded by Duncan Phillips in 1918, The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., opened to the public in 1921 as America’s first museum of modern art. “To See as Artists See” is the first large-scale, traveling presentation of The Phillips’ celebrated collection of American art, chronicling the broad scope and richness of its holdings from 1850 to 1960.

“To See as Artists See: American Art from The Phillips Collection” features more than 100 works by 75 important artists, including outstanding paintings by Winslow Homer , Childe Hassam , Maurice Prendergast , John Sloan , Edward Hopper , Arthur Dove , Georgia O’Keeffe , Charles Sheeler, Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence , Adolf Gottlieb and Robert Motherwell . The paintings in the exhibition range in date from 1845–1965 and represent a magnificent survey of American painters and their work. The exhibition begins with great heroes of nineteenth-century American art, including Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins whose works set the course for modern art in the U.S. The exhibition concludes with works by the Abstract Expressionists whose efforts to create a new visual language in the 1940s caused the art world to turn its attention from Paris to New York and made American art a significant global force.

artwork: Edward Hopper - "Sunday", 1926 - Oil on canvas - 29" x 34" - The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. On view in "American Art from the Phillips Collection" at the Frist Center, Nashville until May 6th 2012.

The paintings will be arranged in 10 thematic groups: Romanticism and Realism (with works by Edward Hicks , George Inness , Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Albert Pinkham Ryder); Impressionism (Childe Hassam, Ernest Lawson, John Henry Twachtman, William Merritt Chase , Maurice Prendergast); Forces in Nature (Marsden Hartley, Rockwell Kent , John Marin , Harold Weston); Nature and Abstraction (Arthur Dove, Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, Kent, Marin, Max Weber ); Modern Life (Robert Henri, George Luks, Walt Kuhn, Edward Hopper, Guy Pène du Bois); The City (John Sloan, John Marin, Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford, Edward Hopper,); Memory and Identity (Grandma Moses, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Jacob Lawrence, Horace Pippin, Rufino Tamayo ); Legacy of Cubism (John Marin, Karl Knaths, Stuart Davis, John Graham, Ilya Bolotowsky); Transition to Abstract Expressionism (Morris Graves, Jackson Pollock , Milton Avery , Alexander Calder ); and Abstract Expressionism (Adolf Gottlieb, Mark Rothko , Clyfford Still, Helen Frankenthaler , Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston ).

The Phillips Collection, America’s first museum of modern art, was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1921, nearly a decade before the Museum of Modern Art (est. in 1929) and the Whitney Museum of American Art (est. 1930) opened in New York.  From its inception, The Phillips Collection championed the very best in American art and artists.  Its in-depth holdings of American paintings are broad in scope, yet cannot be characterized as either encyclopedic or strictly historical.  Rather, The Phillips Collection is a reflection of the tastes and friendships of collector Duncan Phillips (1886–1966) who purchased many of the works from the artists while they were still actively exhibiting. Many of the artists became Phillips’ good friends. A well-regarded art critic in addition to being a collector and museum director, Phillips believed we benefit by giving ourselves over to the direct experience of the work of art.  In this way one enters the artist’s world, learning to see as artists see.  In his extensive critical writings, Phillips made it clear that he sought “artists of creative originality and of sincere independence.”

artwork: Georgia O'Keeffe - "Ranchos Church, No. II, NM", 1929 - Oil on canvas - 24 1/8" x 36 1/8" From The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. On view at the Frist Center, until May 6th 2012.

The Frist Center opened in April 2001, and since that time has hosted a spectacular array of art from the region, the country, and around the world. Unlike any traditional museum you’ve ever visited, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts has become a magnet for Nashville’s rapidly expanding visual arts scene. With an exhibitions schedule that has new art flowing through the magnificent Art Deco building every 6 to 8 weeks, no matter how often you visit, there is always something new and exciting to see in the spacious galleries. See a list of current and upcoming exhibitions. The Frist Center was conceived as a family-friendly place and one of the most popular locations in the center is the innovative Martin ArtQuest Gallery. It’s a colorful space alive with the sounds of learning through making art! ArtQuest activities abound for people of all ages. With 30 interactive stations, and the assistance of knowledgeable staff and volunteers, ArtQuest teaches through activity. Make a print, paint your own original watercolor, create your own colorful sculpture! It’s all there in ArtQuest, and it’s free with gallery admission for adults and always free for youth 18 and under. Visit the center’s website at … http://fristcenter.org