By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Collectors and museums often talk about impressive artists, imposing works and important acquisitions. But for Duncan Phillips, art was not business -- it was personal. The "Masterworks of the Phillips Collection" is a banner exhibition that has come home, temporarily, this summer to the Albright Knox Art Gallery.
For some collectors it's a sport --acquiring valuable paintings before others can get them, or realize their value. For others it's purely business, buying and selling at the most lucrative moment. But for Duncan Phillips, collecting was a healing response to personal tragedy.
The young man's passionate collecting began in 1918 following the close deaths of his father and brother. Phillips turned to art for comfort. And he turned his home into a kind of art memorial. Jay Gates is Director of the Phillips Collection. He says the collection today remains the "joy-giving" experience Phillips intended.
"It's possible to linger and meditate and sort of have a moment of individual grace, aesthetic grace, with each one of these pictures," said Gates. "I find myself just going down into the galleries from time to time, wandering from picture to picture, admiring, one, the extraordinary accomplishment that's involved in pulling this collection together, but also the generosity in seeing to it that it would be given to the public forever."
Nestled throughout the Washington, D.C. home are more than 2,000 modern works. They include some of the most beautiful paintings by some of the world's most famous modern painters -- among them, Renoir, Van Gogh, Degas, Picasso and Monet. Fifty-three of them -- considered the Masterworks -- are now on view at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Ken Wayne is curator for the exhibition. His favorite painting is "Luncheon of the Boating Party" by Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
"That's extremely famous, that's one of the most famous paintings in art history," said Wayne. "It's up there with the Mona Lisa. It's probably the quintessential impressionist painting."
And for good reason. A burst of shimmering colors, expression and gestures leap out across the gallery from the five by six foot canvas. It is not only the centerpiece of the exhibition, but also a favorite of art lovers world wide. Wayne says he's no exception. His personal relationship with the painting began during a trip to France several years ago.
"Actually, I've been to this exact restaurant in a town called Chatou which is a suburb of Paris. I've stood exactly right there on that balcony where these people were," said Wayne. "In the restaurant they have a reproduction of this painting everywhere, so you try to figure out exactly where they were standing, and the angle and the whole bit. It was kind of exciting to think you're stepping into this famous painting in art history."
It was Phillips' hope that he could help make art come alive for those who would see his collection. He believed that there were important links between artists that bridged both time and countries. Louis Grachos is Director of the Albright Knox Art Gallery. He says Phillips had an inspired eye. And Grachos says because of that the collection is not only beautiful, but also tells an inspired story.
"The fact that there's a beautiful Chardin painting here, you can not help but take a look at the great Cezannes in the collection and see where that inspiration came from for Cezanne," said Grachos. "Those kind of lessons of the history of modern art and how it evolved are found in this collection in a very wonderful and very personal way."
Visitors can take their time reflecting on paintings, hung spaciously throughout the special exhibition rooms. And they can linger with favorites, listening to details of the painting and its painter with the accompanying audio tour.
Buffalonian Robbie Takac of the Goo Goo Dolls and fellow band member Johhny Reznik were invited to record the voice tracks for the audio tour. Takac says it was a tremendous honor. He says the Albright Knox is an important, and beloved, part of his own history.
"You know to grow up in a city like this, I thought every city had a Renoir, I thought every city had Picassos," said Takac. "I had no reason to think otherwise because I had this place to come to."
And Takac says for those coming to the Albright Knox Gallery though this summer, the Phillips Collection will make the experience even more memorable. Diane Christian is a UB English Professor and frequent visitor to the museum. She's also seen the Phillips Collection at its home in D.C. Christian says she was delighted to see that the Albright succeeded in capturing the collection's intimate, personal mission.
"It gives you that sense of art that you're to live with it, I mean you're really to look at it," said Christian. "It's really about living. It's not just going and getting culture in some kind of shock in a strange place that proves that you're a smart person. It's really about finding human sail, and human stories, and human size... Oh, it's fantastic. I'm really knocked out by it."
Timed tickets to the Masterworks Exhibition at the Albright Knox Art Gallery are available is now through September first. There will also be several special events scheduled throughout the exhibition, including a concert by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra on June 6th called, "Pictures at a Gallery - Musically Speaking." We've been listening to selections from the BPO's CD, by that name, produced in collaboration with exhibition.