Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Morgan Library Spurns Papyrus Works

Barbara Fultz, long time collector of John Ransom Phillips and Tribeca business woman recently offered to donate three works on papyrus from the Book of the Dead series to the Morgan Library. This series is beautifully illustrated in Phillips recent publication “A Contemporary Book of the Dead”

She was inspired to make the donation after hearing that the Morgan has begun to collect contemporary works on paper. Attending a recent Blake show at the Morgan, she was struck by the parallels between Phillips and William Blake, particularly their integration of text and image.

The Morgan’s response was “Thank you very much for sending the information about John Ransom Phillips. Since it is not within our collecting scope, we are returning your materials.”

“Oh well”, reported Ms. Fultz somewhat surprised. Two of the three works that were to be donated were:

Catching A Boat In The Sky

Breathing