WASHINGTON, D.C. The Phillips Collection has selected esteemed philanthropist, collector and cultural leader His Royal Highness the Duke of Bavaria, Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria von Wittelsbach, to receive the 2003 Duncan Phillips Award. An early champion of German artists Arnulf Rainer, Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Georg Baselitz, and Gerhard Richter, Duke Franz has assembled a remarkable collection, including 800 works that form the nucleus of the spectacular new Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. The Duncan Phillips Award will be conferred upon the Duke of Bavaria, the first international recipient of the award, on October 30, 2003 at the residence of the German Ambassador, followed by a black tie dinner in the galleries of The Phillips Collection. In honor of The Phillips Collection and the Duncan Phillips Award, First Lady Laura Bush hosted an evening reception at the White House on October 29, 2003.

Created in 1999 to celebrate the spirit of art collecting as represented by the life of Duncan Phillips - a visionary collector, philanthropist, and founder of America’s first museum of modern art - the Duncan Phillips medal is awarded to living collectors and patrons who have demonstrated vision, dedication and love for art by assembling a collection and making it available to the public. The award recipient is chosen through careful consideration by a selection committee, which this year included Ned Rifkin, Director of The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Richard Koshalek, President of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and Virginia Wright, co-recipient of the 2001 Duncan Phillips Award with her husband Bagley Wright.

The 2003 Duncan Phillips Award is Chaired by Senator and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller IV, with the German Ambassador and Mrs. Jutta Falke-Ischinger serving as International Chairs. Members of the Honorary Committee include Mrs. Agnes Gund and Mr. Daniel Shapiro, Mr. Georg Baselitz, Mr. David Rockefeller, Sr., Robert and Arlene Kogod, Mr. Dana Gioia, Senator and Mrs. Richard G. Lugar, Mr. Léonard Gianadda, Mr. and Mrs. Calvin Cafritz, Mr. Leonard A. Lauder, Mr. Harvey S. Shipley Miller, Senator and Mrs. Bill Frist, Ambassador and Mrs. Robert Kimmitt, Senator and Mrs. Chuck Hagel and many other distinguished participants.

About Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria von Wittelsbach - In his more than 50 years of collecting, Duke Franz has created an extraordinary collection that includes the complete graphic works of Georg Baselitz. He devoted himself to exploring and collecting contemporary art at a time when Munich’s museum community was very conservative, and he is one of the driving forces behind the creation of the new Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, a remarkable 4-part center for the arts, designed by architect Stephen Braunfels to house four museums in the areas of modern and contemporary art, works on paper, architecture and design. Duke Franz, along with many companies, private individuals, and Hans Zehetmair, the Bavarian Minister for Art and Science, assumed the responsibility of creating the Pinakothek, which opened to the public in September of 2002. As an enhancement to its exceptional collections, The Pinakothek is also committed to a cultural program exploring additional areas of creative endeavor, such as music, literature, theater, dance and film, enabling the visitor to experience the interconnections between the various disciplines in the arts. Duke Franz’ commitment to the creation of this institution place him in the tradition of his ancestor King Ludwig I of Bavaria, who 150 years ago established the Neue Pinakothek, the first international museum of contemporary art in Munich. Like Ludwig I, the Duke has made his private collection of over 800 works accessible to the public as part of the Pinakothek der Moderne. He is a founding member and patron of the Foundation Pinakothek der Moderne, which enabled the construction of the Pinakothek. He also serves as deputy chairman of PIN (Friends of the Pinakothek der Moderne), a foundation created in 1965 to purchase contemporary art, as well as to support and maintain the collection of modern art that now forms part of the Pinakothek der Moderne.

Duke Franz began collecting art while a student in the 1950s, when his grandfather, Crownprince Rupprecht, took him to art galleries and museums. Duke Franz quickly developed an eye for quality. His interest in contemporary art was sparked by the work of Austrian-German surrealist Alfred Kubin, whose drawings the Duke first saw at the Munich art gallery Günther Franke. Duke Franz soon became an avid collector of Kubin’s work. He also attended exhibitions of the work of postwar School of Paris artists such as Pierre Soulages and Jean-Paul Riopelle. By the early 1960s, Duke Franz had become particularly interested in the work of young, and at the time quite unknown, German artists such as Georg Baselitz , Joseph Beuys, Jörg Immendorff, Anselm Kiefer, Imi Knoebel, Markus Lüpertz, Blinky Palermo, A.R. Penck, Sigmar Polke, Arnulf Rainer, and Gerhard Richter. Pivotal to Duke Franz’s exposure to American art were three figures: Heiner Friedrich (owner of a Munich art gallery from 1963-1977 and co-founder of the Dia Center for the Arts in New York) who introduced Duke Franz to American artists such as Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Michael Heizer, Walter de Maria, Fred Sandback and Cy Twombly; and New York gallery owners Leo Castelli and Eugene Victor Thaw, whose galleries the Duke visited every time he was in New York. Throughout his life, Duke Franz placed great importance on personally meeting the artists of his time, often collecting their work when they were not yet established in their careers and were known only to a very small circle in Germany.

Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria von Wittelsbach was born July 14, 1933 in Munich, Germany. He is the elder son of Hereditary Prince (later Duke) Albrecht of Bavaria and Countess Maria Draskovich von Trakostjan. Upon his father Duke Albrecht’s death on July 8, 1996, Prince Franz became the head of the House of Bavaria and assumed the title Duke of Bavaria. He also holds the following titles: Grand Master of the order of St. Hubertus, and of the order of St. George. He is also a Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion of the Sovereign Military order of Malta and a Knight of the Austrian Order of the Golden Fleece. He is a patron of numerous educational, cultural and charitable organizations. Among the many prestigious offices he holds are: Member of the International Committee of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hereditary Senator of the University of Munich; Honorary Senator of the Univeristy of Technology, Munich; and President of the Board of the Foundation for the Academy of Arts in Munich.

Duncan Phillips

Duncan Phillips was a leading art collector, patron and critic from the 1920s to the 1960s. Over five decades, he gathered and preserved more than 2,200 works of art, becoming one of the primary advocates and interpreters of modernism in the United States. Driven by a passionate appreciation for art and artists, Phillips did not set out to create an encyclopedic museum, but rather to bring together works that moved him and make them accessible to the public. He chose works because of the personal impact they made on him and opened his home to visitors to experience his collection in an intimate and personal setting.

From the start an advocate of American art, Phillips was years ahead of his contemporaries in his appreciation and understanding of numerous artists now considered American masters. The Phillips Collection was the first museum to purchase and present the work of Georgia O’Keeffe, Milton Avery, Arthur Dove and others. Phillips nurtured lasting relationships with artists such as Dove, Pierre Bonnard and John Marin, and through his relationships and patronage, shaped the lives of these and other artists whose work was acquired and exhibited for the first time in his museum.