FROM THE COLLECTION : Washington's Prize Possessions

"Skyscrapers" at the Phillips Collection is a touchingly optimistic image of New York. Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) painted it 82 years ago. In 1920, he went to the top of the 41-story Equitable Building at 120 Broadway and took a picture. Then, simplifying crisply, he made a drawing from his photograph. (His pencil study is in the Art Institute of Chicago. The photograph is in Houston, at the Museum of Fine Arts.) Two years later he made this sunny, severe oil. Its style is precisionist. Its tawny colors seem to be entirely invented. Though the syncopated, jazzy pattern of its window shades suggest human beings, no people mess up the view. In Sheeler's Manhattan, rectangles rule. The painting feels large, but isn't. It's just 13 inches wide.

-- Paul Richard

"Skyscrapers," acquired in 1926, hangs in the Phillips Collection (1600 21st St. NW) next to the music room. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (and until 8:30 Thursday) and Sunday noon to 7 p.m. It is closed on Mondays and on July 4. Adult admission is $8.