This exhibition included more than 50 European modern masterworks by artists such as van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet, Degas, Picasso, Bonnard, Gauguin, and Klee. The exhibition reflects Duncan Phillips’ personal understanding of modern art and his approach to collecting and interpreting it.
Phillips saw modernism not as a break with the past, but as a continuation. His goal was not to create an encyclopedic collection, but rather to assemble groups of works that would resonate off one another, revealing the visual harmonies that tied together historical masterworks with the art of his own time.
From El Greco to Picasso presented works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside works by earlier masters that Phillips felt anticipated the modern movements, such as Delacroix, Ingres, El Greco, and Chardin.
This exhibition was organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.
