Degas & Company: Artists Without Borders

Despite its title, "Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris, 1870-1910" has pictures by many more artists than the three singled out for mention by the Phillips Collection exhibition. It has, however, only one central theme. To wit, that the boundaries between French and British art at the time were more porous than our often-stereotyped notions of national style might lead us to believe.

What seems, at least superficially, oddest about the show's title is not that it skips over such better-known painters as James Abbott McNeill Whistler -- understandable with only five works in the show, and three of them drawings -- but that the nod it gives to Walter Richard Sickert, a painter of only modest talents, seems to equate the Englishman's art with that of the two giants with whom his name shares space on the marquee.

He may well be in the same show, but he's not in the same league. Sickert's fellow Brit, William Rothenstein, for example, demonstrates far more skill in only a handful of canvases and drawings. (See Rothenstein's 1892 portrait of his dandified art-world buddy Charles Conder, an Englishman with whom Rothenstein shared a Montmartre studio after meeting in Paris.)

But what Sickert's doing there has less to do with his art than with his not insignificant role in the cross-pollination of ideas between England and France. He first met Edgar Degas in 1883, while delivering one of Whistler's canvases to a show in Paris, and quickly became an advocate -- if an imperfect adopter -- of the French painter's strong sense of spontaneity, movement and light.

Perhaps it would have been better to retain the show's earlier working title, from when it was still a twinkle in the eye of its organizer, the Tate Britain, courtesy of co-curators Anna Gruetzner Robins and Richard Thomson (the latter organized last year's superb "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre" at the National Gallery of Art). Back then, according to my old computer files, it was once known as "Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Their British Circles."

Maybe it doesn't sound sexy, but, unlike "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre," it's not a sexy show, despite the occasional nude (one or two of whom were probably prostitutes).

Rather, it is a thoughtful show and, despite the presence of some dull works, a pretty one. Along with Rothenstein's pictures, works by such lesser-known artists as Sidney Starr and William Thornley (whose lithographic portfolio, based on the paintings of Degas, helped disseminate French art across the English Channel) are the show's true revelations.

DEGAS, SICKERT AND TOULOUSE-LAUTREC: LONDON AND PARIS, 1870-1910 Through May 14 at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. NW (Metro: Dupont Circle). 202-387-2151.http://www.phillipscollection.org. Open Tuesday-Saturday 10 to 5; Thursday evenings to 8:30; Sundays noon to 7. Admission to the special exhibition, which includes admission to the permanent collection, is $12; seniors and students $10; 18 and younger free. Advance tickets are available at the museum or through Ticketmaster at 202-397-7328 orhttp://www.ticketmaster.com.

Public programs associated with the exhibition include:

Friday and March 10, 17, 24 and 31; April 7 and 14 at 11 Gallery talk: "Introduction to 'Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec: London and Paris, 1870-1910.' "

Thursday at 6 and 7 Gallery talk: "Marginal Muse? The Nudes of Degas, Sickert and Bonnard."

Thursday at 6:30 Lecture: "A Tale of Two Cities -- Images of Degas, Sickert and Toulouse-Lautrec." $15. To register, call 202-387-2151, Ext. 303.