Museum Presents 5th Exhibit Of Its Kind
This year the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art has opened to the public the fifth in its Auburn Collects series, a personal collection of artwork belonging to Auburn University alumnus, Preston T. Phillips Jr. Phillips earned his Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Auburn University in 1973. Thereafter, he began collecting art and today he has a collection that encompasses a wide range of media including painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, and ceramics.
According to curator Dr. Lee Gray, the collection as a whole is emblematic of Phillips’ aesthetic sensibility, his attempt to integrate his life with his environment, therefore reflecting his need for harmony between home and office, work and leisure, and nature and the built form.
The collection, according to Phillips, is “built more on intuition than strategy.” “Collecting has more to do with feeling than anything else.” Viewing selections from Phillips’ collection will allow us to see how he integrates art into his environment, how his lifetime work as a professional architect influences, and is influenced by, the objects he collects; and finally, it will allow us to get to know Preston Phillips and his world.
The Jule Collins Smith website contains a few excerpts from Preston Phillips and some things he said about collecting:
“Collecting has more to do with feeling than anything else. Finding a piece to add to my collection is a bit like love at first sight: I am drawn to something without which I cannot live. My first bout with this feeling came just after graduating from Auburn in 1973. I was walking in the French Quarter on a street that dead-ended into Magazine Street. I looked up to see a face illuminated in the window of a gallery about half a block away. Everything around me was in shadow except the gallery window, which was illuminated by shaft of sunlight. The face was Marilyn by Andy Warhol. Even at a great distance I was smitten. Marilyn has been the centerpiece of my collection ever since, a high standard indeed, not just for its provenance, but also for the absolute joy I feel in her presence. Followed by works by Calder, Hockney, Nesbitt, most recently Rauschenburg, as well as lesser known talents such as Tom Slaughter, John Mac Whinnie, Rene Ricard and Lili Lackich, the collection has evolved over thirty plus years to be an integral part of my daily life.”
“Including a variety of media — painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, ceramics, and mixed media — the collection speaks to the core of the artists represented. I am drawn to the essential identity of the artist. Marilyn is the essential Warhol, Yellow Arc is the essential Kelly, Soviet-American Array I is the essential Rauschenberg, Purple and White Iris is the essential Nesbitt and so on. Each image is identifiable to the artist who conceived and created it. Even experimental artists like Man Ray, whose Juliet is so technically adroit that it can’t be reproduced, is classically and iconically “Man Ray.” I am also attracted to works that pinpoint a specific moment in time or have a sense of historical essence. Mc Govern by Alexander Calder is such an example: Mao Defaced by photographer Erica Lanser is another. Ross Bleckner’s Rainbow Flag specifically addresses the issue of Gays in the military. Rauschenburg’s Soviet-American Array One is unmistakably original to the height of Perestroika. Tim Prythero’s Shell Regular Premium pays homage to the crumbling icons along Route 66, and Rene Ricard’s poignant ode to the state of the 1980’s art world, “St. Julian” written over the rubbing of Andy Warhol’s tombstone, is a footnote to art history.”
“Collecting is really about finding a work of art or an object that tells you something about yourself that was hidden. This discovery is a reminder that there is always more to learn.”
Phillips’ collection will be on display at the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art until Oct., 29, 2006.
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