Marjorie Acker Phillips: The Woman Behind the Phillips Collection
There’s an old saying that “behind every great man is a great woman.” As you stroll through the High Museum of Art’s exhibition European Masterworks: The Phillips Collections admiring stunning works by master painters Bonnard, van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Klee, and others, you ought to keep that phrase in mind — and this name too: Marjorie Acker Phillips.

Marjorie Phillips (1894–1985), Self-Portrait, ca. 1940. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Marjorie Acker Phillips (1894–1985) was both a distinguished painter and an art collector. However, like many women of her time, her name is often eclipsed by that of her husband, Duncan Phillips.

Marjorie played an integral role in developing The Phillips Collection with Duncan, yet she is not as widely recognized for her contributions in helping establish the first American museum of modern art.

Marjorie Acker was born in Bourbon, Indiana, to a large family at the end of the nineteenth century. She enjoyed a modest upbringing as one of six children born to parents Charles Ernest Acker, an electrochemical engineer and inventor, and Alice Beal.

Marjorie Phillips (1894–1985), The Hudson at Ossining, before 1921. The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.

Much of her childhood was spent with her family in Ossining-on-the-Hudson, New York. Marjorie was interested in art from a very young age and was inspired by her uncles, artists Gifford and Reynolds Beal, who encouraged her to pursue her talents and helped Marjorie attend the Art Students League of New York from 1915 through 1918, when she graduated.

Marjorie first met Duncan Phillips in 1920 at an exhibition of his own art collection at the Century Club in New York. The pair hit it off and were married shortly after, on October 8, 1921.

Marjorie moved to Washington, DC, where she settled with her new husband and his mother in their Georgian Revival mansion in Dupont Circle, a fashionable neighborhood of northwest DC.

In the fall of 1921, The Phillips Collection officially opened to the public as the Phillips Memorial Art Gallery.
['High Museum Of Art']
['Feminism', 'Womens Rights', 'Painting', 'Museums', 'Art History']