Matt Phillips, Ariadne, Poem, Mixed Media Abstract Modernist Colorful Collage Lithograph Print, 1987

Color lithograph with color paper collage, 1987. Pencil signed lower right and dated, and numbered lower left 5/24. Litho depicts a poem titled “Ariadne” by T. Weiss. Published by Pondside Press, New York. Pondside Press is collaborative workshop for artists desiring to produce hand printed lithographs, monotype and works of art on paper. Tamarind Master Printer Melissa Katzman Braggins and Printer, Ted Braggins operate the studio in the Hudson River valley region of New York. Founded in 1985, the printers have produced original graphic art for over 30 years.

Matt Phillips (1927–2017) was a painter, printmaker, poet and art educator. He was born in New York and studied literature at the University of Chicago where he earned his master’s degree. He first studied art at the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, and traveled throughout Europe studying painting. He taught art in Paris from 1962 to 1964. When he returned to the United States, he taught at Bard College in upstate New York for 27 years. After retiring from Bard in 1987, he devoted his time to exhibitions, travel and guest lectures. Matt Phillips passed away in Oakland, Ca in March, 2017. Phillips is widely recognized as a master of the monotype and monotype/collage. Phillips’ reputation as an important 20th century artist is based on his revival of the monotype technique in America, previously explored by 19th century artists Degas, Gauguin, and Maurice Prendergast. Phillips merges figural and abstract traditions in his works.

Matt Phillips has had over 60 solo exhibitions. His work was shown in: “Singular Impressions: The Monotype in America” – The National Museum of American Art Washington, DC; “The Painterly Print” – Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; “The New American Monotypes” – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; “The Monotype, An Edition of One: Milton Avery, Maurice Prendergast, Abraham Walkowitz, Matt Phillips” – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN; and others. Phillips has received grants and awards by Pollock-Krasner Foundation; Bard College; National Endowment for the Arts; and John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.
“I think of my monotypes as colored poems, enclosed in mystery. Henri Matisse once wrote that black is a color. White is too, and all the off whites, their tones and intervals and shapes and spaces, made possible by paper and printing, fascinate me. Ultimately monotype is just another method which allows us to get our work done. It is one form of discreet communication.”
Matt Phillips, Monotypes, 1961-1975.

Selected Museum Collections:
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore, MD
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
Hirshhorn Museum (Smithsonian) and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
National Gallery, Rosenwald Collection, Washington, DC
New York Public Library, New York, NY
Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Philadelphia Public Library, Philadelphia, PA
Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, OH
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY