What makes an artwork speak to us? What gives it an undeniable presence? Artworks can often be a kind of mirror, reflecting our desires, fears, and the world itself. Some of the artists in this gallery use color to suggest pictorial space or as a vehicle for expressing the human condition. Others overlay seemingly literal depictions of nature and the built environment with psychological intensity, sometimes to highlight historical trauma. Through an implied absence—of a figure or of an object—we are invited to complete the narrative.
Edward Hopper
American, 1882–1967
Approaching a City
1946
Oil paint on canvas
The Phillips Collection.
Acquired 1947
© 2023 Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY
Travel is a recurring theme in Edward Hopper’s art, although he often gave more significance to the journey than to the destination. In this painting, Hopper depicted an arrested moment on a train trip: a wide-angle view of railroad tracks and an underpass that evokes the sensation of the train’s deceleration as it moves into the heart of the city. Here, Hopper suggests a future that is at once both predictable and unknown.
Josef Albers
American, born in Germany, 1888–1976
Homage to the Square: Temprano
1957
Oil paint on canvas mounted on hardboard
The Phillips Collection
Acquired 1962
© The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2023
In the early 1950s, Josef Albers began a series of paintings entitled Homage to the Square of which Temprano (Spanish for early or premature) is an example. In these works, Albers used the motif of nested squares to explore the interaction among colors. With their calm and stable geometry, the squares-within-squares float in vibrant space, their sparseness inviting meditation on the psychology of perception, visual experience, and ultimately the interaction between the work of art and its viewer. The artist Jacob Lawrence revealed that Albers “had a great influence on me in a plastic, aesthetic sense… I would say that much of my teaching is based on [his work].”
Richard Diebenkorn
American, 1922–1993
Interior with View of the Ocean
1957
Oil paint on canvas
The Phillips Collection
Acquired 1958
© The Richard Diebenkorn Foundation
In 1955, abstract painter Richard Diebenkorn turned to objects and figures as source material for his art. These new works contain an inherent tension between representation and abstraction, often with an added psychological dimension. Interior with View of the Ocean is a depiction of Diebenkorn’s studio. Duncan Phillips quickly recognized in Diebenkorn a continuation of the tradition upon which his entire collection was based—that of composing images and communicating personal expression through contrasts and subtle variations of pure color.
Benny Andrews
American, 1930–2006
Trail of Tears
2005
Oil paint on canvas with painted fabric, mixed media, and string
The Phillips Collection
Gift of Agnes Gund, 2019
© Benny Andrews Estate / VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS)
Although Benny Andrews was of Cherokee-descent, he rarely mentioned this fact in conjunction with his work, opting instead to paint the disenfranchised and dispossessed more generally. Trail of Tears illustrates the involuntary removal of almost 100,000 Native Americans from their ancestral homelands by the US government beginning in 1830. Andrews shrouded the bodies in the foreground of the painting with paper and cloth fragments, suggesting the burden of emotional weight carried by the refugees.
Janet Taylor Pickett
American, born 1948
And She Was Born
2017
Acrylic paint on canvas with paper collage
The Phillips Collection
The Dreier Fund for Acquisitions
Acquired 2020
© Janet Taylor Pickett, courtesy Jennifer Baahng Gallery
Janet Taylor Pickett combines painting and collage to create work about women in the African diaspora. And She Was Born exemplifies the strength and beauty of Black women. The dress form, a recurring motif in Taylor Pickett’s practice, with arms in a power stance, supports the collaged and painted head of a Surma woman from the Omo Valley in Ethiopia. The Surma people adorn their bodies with artful arrangements of flowers, leaves, and fruit.
Georgia O’Keeffe
American, 1887–1986
My Shanty, Lake George
1922
Oil paint on canvas
The Phillips Collection
Acquired 1926
© 2023 Georgia O'Keeffe Museum / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
My Shanty, Lake George is an early example of Georgia O’Keeffe’s lifelong appreciation of architecture and its organic relationship to the landscape. The painting also functions as an oblique portrait of the artist and illustrates her tendency to overlay objective fact with spiritual and symbolic meanings. Duncan Phillips was particularly impressed by the painting’s “atmosphere of portentous solitude.” Many contemporary artists also admired her work: Arthur Dove revealed that O’Keeffe “is doing without effort what all we moderns have been trying to do.”
All Stars: American Artists from The Phillips Collection is organized by The Phillips Collection in collaboration with the Denver Art Museum.
Support is provided by the Tom Taplin Jr. and Ted Taplin Endowment, the Birnbaum Social Discourse Project, Ellen and Morris Susman, Lisë Gander and Andy Main, Mike Leprino Family Foundation, the Kristin and Charles Lohmiller Exhibitions Fund, the donors to the Annual Fund Leadership Campaign, and the residents who support the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD). This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Promotional support is provided by 5280 Magazine and CBS Colorado.
