WHAT TO HANG OVER THE FIREPLACE: a Visit to the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Glow On by Jules Olitski, at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., I visited the Phillips Collection, the art museum that began as the private collection of the Duncan Phillips family and is now a premier museum of modern art. (Duncan Phillips, who founded the museum, was the grandson of wealthy banker and steel magnate, James H. Laughlin, and son of Pittsburgh window glass millionaire, Duncan Clinch Phillips.) For an overall description of the museum collection and its history, see my last week's post.

Figures by David Driskell.

My first visit to the Phillips Collection was in 2019, and as I explored the part of the museum that was the original Phillips home, I was struck by the way the paintings were integrated into the architecture of each room. Almost every room had a fireplace. I was interested to see how over each fireplace a painting had been selected that fit with its color and style. 

Red Hills, Lake George by Georgia O'Keefe, over the fireplace in the Where We Meet gallery, a combined exhibit of works from the Phillips Collection and the Howard University art collection.

On this visit I was surprised to discover NEW paintings over the fireplaces! Again, each appears to have been chosen to coordinate with the style of each fireplace. Here are a few examples:

Three paintings from the Migration series by Jacob Lawrence.

Succession by Wassily Kandinsky.

Still Life with Grapes and Clarinet by Georges Braque.

In the elegant music room on the main floor, where elaborate wood carvings are part of the massive fireplace design, there is no room for art above the fireplace. On my 2019 visit, two Mondrian paintings, set off by the dark wood paneling, had been chosen to flank the fireplace. Now, in 2024, I discovered that they too had been replaced. 

The Music Room.

These are just a small sample of what you can see at the Phillips Collection. To read my posts about my visit in 2019, go to:

The Phillips Collection, Part 1: America's First Museum of Modern Art. 

The Phillips Collection, Part II: What Do You Hang Over the Fireplace?

And to learn about the Family Gallery at the museum, a guide to looking at art with children, go to my recent post at my Art and Books blog.