GIFFORD PHILLIPS

PHILLIPS--Gifford. After a long and delightful life, we say goodbye to Gifford Phillips, who died April 17, in Palm Desert California, where he was wintering with his wife of 60 years, Joann Phillips. Gifford was an active force for good and equality. Gifford was born June 30 1918 in Chevy Chase, Maryland, the son of James Laughlin Phillips and Alice Conyngham Gifford. His father died suddenly from influenza just four months after his only child's birth. Alice Phillips subsequently remarried to Charles Alfred Johnson. Gifford was raised with his younger brother, Charles Johnson, in Charlford Castle, a residence south of Denver. Phillips attended Stanford University but transferred to Yale University, from which he graduated in 1942. Pursuing a life long activism, Gifford founded Frontier magazine, a liberal West Coast political monthly, with editor Phil Kerby in 1949 after moving to Los Angeles. In 1954, Frontier published its blacklist expose, "The Hollywood Story" by Elizabeth Poe Kerby. The expose's appearance signaled the passing of the "red scare" era. Phillips published the magazine until 1966 when it was folded into The Nation magazine. Phillips served as Associate Publisher of that magazine from 1966 to 1970. He married Joann Kocher in 1953 after they met at a Democratic Party function. His deep involvement in California politics had started with being Treasurer for Helen Gahagan Douglas' congressional campaign against Richard Nixon in 1948. Phillips would serve as a delegate from California to Democratic National Conventions in 1952, 1956, 1960, and 1964. He was an early supporter of Eugene McCarthy in 1968, co-chairing McCarthy's California campaign with future governor Jerry Brown. Phillips was an ardent supporter of George McGovern's presidential campaign, which eventually earned him a place on President Richard Nixon's 1972 'enemies list', much to Gifford's delight. From the 1950s, he was a partner in Pardee Phillips, a real estate corporation that built houses and shopping malls in Southern California and Nevada. However, art and politics were to always remain at the forefront of his interests. Gifford and Joann became great friends and supporters of southern California artists including Richard Diebenkorn, Emerson Woelffer, Lee Mullican and Claire Falkenstien. As one of Diebenkorn's earliest patrons, Gifford introduced Diebenkorn's figurative paintings to his uncle, Duncan Phillips, head of the Phillips Collection in Washington DC. Gifford also commended his uncle to the work of Mark Rothko leading to the acquisitions that form the celebrated Rothko Room at the museum. Phillips was founding chairman of the Contemporary Art Council at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in 1961. He joined the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1966 where he served for four decades including eight years as Chair of the Painting and Sculpture Committee. Gifford served on the Phillips Collection Board for over 30 years. Gifford was a member of the Board of Governors of the Yale University Art Museum from 1985 to 1999. He was also a member of the Mark Rothko foundation when that group resolved the complicated and protracted legal battle over that artist's estate. He was a Trustee and President of the Pasadena Art Museum from 1970 to 1974, a period during which that institution would become the Norton Simon museum and serve as the setting for a landmark case on the rights of museum donors. In 1987, Joann and Gifford moved permanently to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where as summer residents they had been involved in local arts efforts since 1968. He chaired the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival for several years. He and Joann with wise counsel from Ohkay Owingeh elder and scholar, Alfonso Ortiz, and writer and scholar, Edward T. Hall founded the Chamiza Foundation in 1989 to support and stimulate Pueblo culture. Recognized by a resolution in the New Mexico House of Representatives for its work in 2009, the foundation is nationally renowned for its innovative grant support guided by a board with a majority of Pueblo members. In this and so many other efforts, Gifford touched many people, leaving us all much happier for having known him. Besides his wife, Phillips is survived by his son, James, of La Quinta, California, daughters, Alice Swistel of New York City, and Marjorie Elliott of Princeton, New Jersey, and eight grandchildren, Claire Elliott, Rosalind Elliott, Gifford Elliott, Sophia Phillips, Jackson Phillips, Lily Swistel, Nina Swistel, and Zazu Swistel.