The long-awaited, much-touted new era at the Phillips Collection is about to arrive.
Months of special events linked to the museum's five-story expansion begin today with the announcement that the Phillips has raised $29 million in its first-ever capital campaign -- $2 million more than the goal and two years ahead of schedule.
In December, the museum receives the keys to its new building, next door to its intimate Dupont Circle home, which will add 3,000 square feet of gallery space and an auditorium. This sets the stage for the first exhibit in the new space in February, as well as the return this spring of 60 masterworks, including Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party," sent on tour during the renovation.
"We are now better equipped to carry out our mission as a place for people to engage with great works of modern and contemporary art," said Jay Gates, director since 1998, in an interview in his office.
Gates said he hopes the new pieces will fit together with the existing galleries in a way that meets modern expectations but maintains the intensely personal feel of the museum, founded in 1921 by collector Duncan Phillips, whose grandfather was a steel and banking magnate.
"Mr. Phillips said he didn't want a conventional art museum," Gates said. "His favorite verb was 'to linger,' meaning to spend time and listen, to learn the vocabulary of the painting. This is something you don't want to mess with."
Loyalty to that tradition helped make the fundraising such a success; most of the money was raised locally. The goal was reached without the lure of a named architect and with few multimillion-dollar gifts, and the drive came at a time when 80 other art museums were planning expansions, Gates said. Funding projects at Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Kennedy Center were scotched, by lack of public or congressional support.
"People like it like it is," said Gates. "There is a threshold you can't cross and remain the Phillips Collection."
Said George Vradenburg III, chairman of the board: "I think those people who were attracted to supporting the Phillips found that residential scale very appealing. We are not the National Gallery of Art, which is large and vibrant, the aircraft carrier of the American art experience."
The fundraising effort, launched in December 2001, was greatly aided by a $9 million challenge grant from local philanthropists Vicki and Roger Sant. "Everyone has a sense of ownership of the Phillips," said Vicki Sant, now honorary chairman of the board and president of the National Gallery. "For me, it was love at first sight." She has been engaged in the workings of the Phillips, particularly its education programs, which are extensive despite a small staff and limited space.
"We gave our gift in two phases," Sant said. "After the first $3 million, the campaign reached a logjam, and it was clear we needed a major gift from somewhere." The Sants kick-started the fundraising again with $6 million more.
"We really didn't want to lose the spirit of the Phillips, but enhance it," she said.
