Included are luminous works by such masters as William Merritt Chase, William Glackens, Lilian Westcott Hale, Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast and John Henry Twachtman.

Members of the first gener- ation to absorb the aesthetics of French Impressionism, these artists applied the brighter palette and broken brushwork of their European counterparts to the American landscape, focus- ing on intimate and atmospheric views of parks and beaches as well as urban views and charming interiors. This exhibition was organized by The Phillips Collection.

The exhibition and national tour are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the American Masterpieces program. It is made possible in Rochester by Presenting Sponsors M&T Bank and Riedman Foundation, with additional underwriting from the Gallery Council of the Memorial Art Gallery, the Gouvernet Arts Fund at the Community Foundation, University of Rochester Medical Center, Mrs. Frederick D. Berkeley III, and Dorothy Centner in memory of her husband, William. Support is also provided by Nancy G. Curme, Jane W. Labrum, Aaron Klein and Maria Lauriello-Klein, and gifts in memory of Diane Holahan Grosso.

Duncan Phillips and the American Impressionists

The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, is home to one of the most exquisite collections of Impressionist and modern American and European art in the world, with more than 2,500 works by artists such as Renoir, Matisse, Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Cézanne, Picasso, Klee, O'Keeffe, Lawrence, Dove, Diebenkorn and Rothko. Opened to the public in 1921, the museum is housed in the Georgian Revival residence of founder and art collector Duncan Phillips (1886–1966).

Phillips was born in Pittsburgh, the son of a retired industrialist and a steel heiress, and moved to Washington with his family in 1895. After graduating from Yale in 1908, he arrived in New York as an aspiring art critic and together with his older brother began assembling an art collection. The untimely death of his brother in 1918 and their father a year earlier prompted Phillips and his mother to establish The Phillips Memorial Gallery. Beginning with only a handful of paintings, Phillips worked diligently to expand the collection.

A man of his time in his enthusiasm for American Impressionist painting, Phillips was one of its first major collectors. By far, the greatest number of acquisitions were by such acknowledged "mature" masters of the style as Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twatchman, J. Alden Weir, and William Lathrop. The collection also included paintings by Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, Gifford Beal and Helen Turner. Most of these artists were still active when Phillips was assembling his collection, and he became a patron and friend to several, including Beal, Lawson, Prendergast, Weir and Augustus Vincent Tack.

By the early 1920s, however, the writings of contemporary critics such as Roger Fry and Clive Bell opened Phillips's eyes to the intent of abstract art, and his collecting in that decade reflected his new passion. He added very few American Impressionist paintings to his collection after 1923. -- mag.rochester.edu