Duncan Phillips

Originally born in Pittsburgh, PA, Duncan Phillips, son of Duncan Clinch Phillips (1838–1917), a Pittsburgh window glass millionaire and member of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, owners of the dam whose failure resulted in the Johnstown Flood, moved with his family to Washington, D.C. in 1895. The grandson of James Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, Phillips had begun to establish himself as an art critic. Following the death of his father in 1917 and his brother, James Laughlin Phillips, in 1918, Phillips and his mother opened up the one room Phillips Memorial Gallery in their Dupont Circle neighborhood residence in Washington, D.C. Originally the gallery was used to display the family art collection which quickly grew to over 600 pieces following the gallery’s opening. Phillips and his mother moved their residence in 1930, dedicating the entirety of the Dupont Circle property as public gallery space.

Phillips had an appreciation for art across the ages, seeing each unique style as simply a manifestation of art’s continuous evolution. This attitude ran counter to many in the profession who at the time were highly critical of what was considered the modernism of the time. In fact, Phillips’ focus paid heavy attention to those that he considered leaders of a movement including El Greco, calling him the "first impassioned expressionist"; Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin because he was "the first modern painter"; Francisco Goya because he was "the stepping stone between the Old Masters and the Great Moderns like Cézanne"; and Édouard Manet, a "significant link in a chain which began with Goya and which [led] to Gauguin and Matisse."

Phillips represented American and European works equally, including pieces by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Maurice Prendergast, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Albert Pinkham Ryder along with canvases by Pierre Bonnard, Peter Ilsted and Édouard Vuillard. He typically intermixed movements together, such as when he exhibited watercolors by John Marin with paintings by Cézanne, and works by van Gogh with El Greco’s The Repentant St. Peter (circa 1600–05). Phillips’ vision was said to bring together "congenial spirits among the artists,".

Many of the artists that Phillips presented to the public were up-and-coming, not yet meriting the recognition of the major venues. Included among these fresh faces were Marin, Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur Dove, Nicolas de Staël, Milton Avery and Augustus Vincent Tack. By purchasing their works for what he called his "encouragement collection”, Phillips developed a close personal relationship with them which continued throughout their lives. "

Marjorie Acker Phillips

Marjorie Acker Phillips was an American Impressionist painter and art collector. Born in Bourbon, Indiana to Charles Ernest Acker and Alice Beal, Acker was one of seven siblings. Growing up in Ossining, New York, she started drawing as a child. Her two uncles, Reynolds Beal and Gifford Beal, recognized her potential and encouraged her pursuit of art as a career. Acker attended the Art Students League in 1915 and graduated in 1918, continuing to study under Boardman Robinson.

Acker preferred painting landscapes and still life works. It was while attending an art exhibition for Duncan Phillips at the Century Association in January, 1921, that the two met. They married in October of that same year. Upon joining her husband and his mother in the Dupont Circle residence, the couple combined their individual art holdings and continued to expand their collection.

It was while visiting France in 1923 that Acker became interested in Impressionism, finding inspiration in the work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne. The couple began collecting both artists’ works, including Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party which was obtained for $125,000. With renewed enthusiasm for art, despite living a socialite lifestyle alongside her husband, Acker made the effort to paint every morning in her Washington, D.C. studio.

The Phillips’ family came to include their first child, Mary Marjorie, and their second child, Laughlin, who would later take his parent’s place as director of the museum. By 1930 the couple’s collection had also grown so sizable that they had to move the family out of the mansion and into a nearby house in the Foxhall neighborhood. The couple also purchased a summer home in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania. Continuing to pursue her own artistic efforts, Acker entered a piece in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics.

By the time of her husband’s death in 1966, the couple had collected over 2,500 works of art. After his death, Acker, who had been serving as Associate Director of the Phillips Collection, became its Director. In 1971 she curated a Paul Cézanne retrospective and published a book on her late husband entitled Duncan Phillips and His Collection. After retiring in 1972, Laughlin Phillips took his mother’s place as Director of the Phillips Collection. Acker donated a piece of property in Martha's Vineyard to the Sheriff's Meadow Foundation in 1980, establishing the Phillips Preserve nature conservancy. The artist died in 1985 of pulmonary failure.