Founder’s Favorites: Philip C. Curtis

PHILIP C. CURTIS

In Fall 2021, Phoenix Art Museum will restore The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis to its original location on the first floor of the Museum’s North Wing. The reinvigorated gallery will feature paintings by the beloved Arizona artist in conversation with other works from the Museum’s American art collection, providing visitors with the opportunity to learn more about paintings by Philip C. Curtis in an art historical context. The Ullman Center was created in 2001, just one year after the artist’s passing, and was designed to feature the works of Curtis while honoring his pivotal role in establishing Phoenix Art Museum. In 2017, it was moved to a new location following the installation of the Schorr Collection, long-term loans of Old-Master paintings provided to the Museum by the U.K.-based David and Hannah Lewis family. Following the closure of the Schorr Collection in 2021, and after the completion of a number of gallery improvements, The Ullman Center will return to the first-floor space. Philip C. Curtis was born in 1907 in Jackson, Michigan. After suffering a serious accident as a child when he fell through a frozen lake, Curtis endured a lengthy recovery period, during which time he began to paint. As he managed the pain, which predominantly affected his legs, he took comfort in sitting at his easel. He would go on to study art at Albion College, law at the University of Michigan, and art once more as a graduate student at Yale University. In 1937, Curtis was appointed by President Roosevelt to establish the Phoenix Federal Art Center, the early forerunner of Phoenix Art Museum, as part of the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Arts Project. In 1939, however, he would leave Arizona to establish the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa. Following his service with the Office of Strategic Services in Washington, D.C., part of the war effort during World War II, Curtis returned to Arizona in 1947 and began to work full-time as an artist. Once Phoenix Art Museum opened in 1959, he maintained a close relationship with the Museum he had helped to establish until his death. Today, the Museum retains more than 100 works by Curtis in its collection. His paintings of “gentle surrealism” focus on themes of loneliness, isolation, and magical realism, with many featuring recurring characters whom Curtis himself once described as his own acting company. More information on The Ullman Center and the art of Philip C. Curtis will follow in future issues of PhxArt Magazine. Philip C. Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona is on view now through Summer 2021 on the second floor of the Museum’s North Wing.