Capital Culture

"We have no mandate for what we do and don't show," says Robin Cafritz (at left) of the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. "But we do want to assert our own identity." To guide Cafritz and his fellow curators, the very small but very special museum recently brought in distinguished British art historian and painter Sir Lawrence Gowing, whose recent book, Paintings in the Louvre, was one of the best art books of last season. Cafritz (whose stepfather, Laughlin Phillips, is the museum's director) calls Gowing "a man whose reputation equals this collection," which is saying a lot, considering the Phillips's revered holding of Impressionist masterpieces is one of the country's best. Cafritz is now busy helping Gowing track down Titians and Watteaus for an exhibition of pastoral landscapes opening at the National Gallery this fall. In the meantime, the Phillips's already high profile should rise even further with its current retrospective of the little-known Argentinean Surrealist Guillermo Roux and next month's show of Ian Woodner's extraordinary collection of works by Odilon Redon. —BILL THOMAS

BILL THOMAS