WASHINGTON, DC.-In April 2006, The Phillips Collection will present The Renoir Returns: A Celebration of Masterworks from The Phillips Collection, welcoming back to Washington, D.C., approximately 60 masterworks from an enormously successful four-year international tour. This special homecoming will mark the culmination of a major addition and renovation project that the Phillips began in 2003 to modernize and expand the institution, while maintaining the beloved qualities of one of the leading intimately scaled museums in the world. The Renoir Returns, an exhibition comprising some 60 key works that form the heart of the Phillips’ renowned collection, was organized by the Phillips and is on an 11-venue tour for the duration of the building project, allowing audiences throughout the world to experience these great works. The renovation project’s completion will be celebrated in April 2006 when the museum’s most treasured master paintings, including Renoir’s great Luncheon of the Boating Party, return home.

“The Renoir Returns is a chance for us all to experience again the cultural treasures that have distinguished The Phillips Collection,” says Jay Gates, director. “It is also an opportunity to acknowledge and enjoy the important changes that the institution has undergone in the last several years. Though subtle from the outside, we have made a full spectrum of improvements that will enable us to better serve our audiences and carry out our mission as a place for people to engage in personal relationships with great works of art, share ideas, expand horizons, and deepen their experiences of modern and contemporary art. There’s no question we’ll be better able to fulfill our reputation as a distinctive home to the finest in modern art.”

The Phillips Collection is America’s first museum of modern art. In 1921, founder Duncan Phillips opened his 19th–century Georgian Revival house, and his art collection, to the public. Since then, the museum has continued to acquire works of art and present them in the intimate setting Phillips had intended and has maintained a significant program of temporary exhibitions, classical music concerts, and programs for the public and for schools. Ongoing efforts since the mid-1990s have improved the Phillips’ ability to serve and engage its growing audiences. Plans were drawn up to increase and upgrade gallery space, improve visitor amenities, and provide an auditorium and other public programming spaces while preserving the intimate and residential quality of the original building. This $27-million renovation and addition project is slated for completion by January 2006.

The Renoir Returns: A Celebration of Masterworks from The Phillips Collection - The Renoir Returns: A Celebration of Masterworks from The Phillips Collection presents key masterworks in the history of art that together express Duncan Phillips’ singular perspective on European art. The exhibition comprises European modern masterworks that Phillips acquired during his lifetime, including works by van Gogh, C�zanne, Monet, Degas, Picasso, Bonnard, Gauguin, and Klee, as well as several works by earlier masters whom Phillips felt anticipated the modern movements, such as Delacroix, Ingres, El Greco, and Chardin. Phillips saw modernism not as a break with the past, but as a continuation of it, and was committed to assembling a collection of works that he felt would resonate with one another, tying together historical masterworks with the art of his own time.

This exhibition will include some of the most beloved works of the last two centuries, of significance for both their place in each artist’s oeuvre and their particular connection to Phillips and his museum. On view again will be the iconic work of The Phillips Collection, Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880-81), which Phillips called “the only Renoir I need”; van Gogh’s Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles (1888), which Phillips purchased in 1930 to mark the transformation of his home and collection into a public museum; C�zanne’s Ginger Pot with Pomegranate and Pears (1890-93), believed to have been given by the artist to Claude Monet as a gift; Picasso’s The Blue Room (1901), with its mannered figure and the predominate palette of the artist’s Blue Period; and Paul Klee’s Picture Album (1937), one of 13 Klees in The Phillips Collection that have inspired contemporary artists such as Richard Diebenkorn, Kenneth Noland, and Gene Davis. The earlier masterworks—such as El Greco’s The Repentant St. Peter (c. 1600-05, or later), Chardin’s A Bowl of Plums (c. 1728), Delacroix’s Paganini (1831), and Ingres’ The Small Bather (1826)—provide the references and counterpoints that reflect Phillips’ singular perspective on the evolution of modernism.