Philip Conisbee; National Gallery Curator

Philip Conisbee; National Gallery Curator

By Matt Schudel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 19, 2008; B05

Philip Conisbee, a National Gallery of Art curator who organized several of the museum's most popular and acclaimed exhibitions of recent years, died Jan. 16 of complications of lung cancer at his home in Washington. He was 62.

A onetime college professor in his native United Kingdom, Mr. Conisbee possessed a refined curatorial eye and a gift for explaining art to the general public. He was a guiding force behind many successful exhibitions at the National Gallery, including ones devoted to the works of Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul C¿zanne.

Mr. Conisbee specialized in French and other European art from the 17th to the 19th century and joined the National Gallery in 1993 as curator of French paintings. He had been the museum's senior curator of European paintings since 1998.

Perhaps his most resounding success came in late 1998, when he was co-curator of "Van Gogh's Van Goghs," an exhibition of 70 masterpieces from the Van Gogh Museum in the Netherlands. More than 480,000 visitors attended the exhibition, which ran for 90 days. Lines stretched around the block as art lovers arrived as early as 4 a.m. to claim their places. Admission was free, but tickets were scalped for as much as $100.

"It's a phenomenal thing," National Gallery Director Earl A. Powell III said at the time. "It's a benchmark against which other things will be measured."

Mr. Conisbee supervised the installation of the paintings, which had seldom been shown outside the Netherlands, down to the smallest detail. Each painting was measured so that its center was exactly 62 inches above the floor.

The exhibition later traveled to Los Angeles, where it was seen by more than 900,000 people.

In 2006, Mr. Conisbee was co-curator of another National Gallery blockbuster, "C¿zanne in Provence," seen by more than 335,000 people. Mr. Conisbee wrote the principal essay for the exhibition catalogue, which examined the 19th-century artist's life and work.

Earlier, in a 1998 article in The Washington Post, Mr. Conisbee had described the French master's "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" (1890) as "my favorite among the 20 C¿zannes" in the National Gallery.

"If you look at how C¿zanne combines these colors with his very free brushwork," he said, "you'll understand that this is a pivotal picture in the history of art. It was done right at the transition from representational painting to modern abstract painting."

When Mr. Conisbee came to the National Gallery from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1993, New York art dealer Richard L. Feigen told the Los Angeles Times: "There aren't many Philip Conisbees around. He is one of the great curatorial talents in the world."

Philip Conisbee was born Jan. 3, 1946, in Belfast and grew up primarily in London. He graduated from the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art in 1968 and received a doctorate in art history from the Courtauld in 1978. (He rarely used the title of "Dr.", preferring to be known as "Mr.")

He taught at the University of Reading, the University of London and, for 12 years, at the University of Leicester in England. From 1978 to 1986, he presented an annual seminar on 18th- and 19th-century French art at the University of Cambridge.

He came to the United States in 1986 as an associate curator of French paintings at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, then went to the Los Angeles County museum in 1988 as curator of European painting and sculpture. His boss in Los Angeles, Powell, later hired him at the National Gallery.

Among other prominent exhibitions that Mr. Conisbee helped curate at the National Gallery were "In the Light of Italy" (1996), featuring French painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot; "Georges de La Tour and His World" (1996); "Degas at the Races" (1998); "Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare" (1998); "Portraits by Ingres" (1999); and "Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre" (2004).

Mr. Conisbee once described his joy at opening crates of newly arrived art before an exhibition: "One of the most exciting parts of a curator's life is to see the paintings coming out of their packages. It's like Christmastime."

He wrote and lectured on art history and museum work and collected European paintings and prints. He became a U.S. citizen in 1994.

Mr. Conisbee, who had a cultivated British accent, a mane of silver hair and a commanding 6-foot-3 presence, was a favorite of reporters and often appeared on television and radio. He always maintained a sense of humor about his work and delighted in a story about overhearing two matrons discussing French artists of the 19th century.

"Manet, Monet," one of them said. "Either is correct."

His marriage to Susan Baer ended in divorce.

Survivors include his wife of 14 years, Faya Causey Conisbee of Washington, who is the National Gallery's head of academic programs; two children from his first marriage, Ben Conisbee Baer of New York and Molly Conisbee-Rijke of Bath, England; a stepson, Jan Causey Frel of San Francisco; his father, Paul Conisbee of London; and a brother.