The Washington Post

Editorial Review on 15 for Philip: Fifteen Artists Look at Arts Patron Philip Barlow

By Jessica Dawson
January 28, 2008

Some of the city's best artists pay tribute to an arts benefactor in this multimedia exhibition of representational and abstract portraits.

Who is Philip Barlow? He's that hulking, otherwise nondescript local collector with a sweet spot for Washington artists, 15 of whom decided to pay him tribute. The resulting show of slight, though heartfelt, images in paint, video and sculpture veers from the tender to the wry to the unflattering -- see what I mean in the fleshy paint of A.B. Miner's picture, or the lyrics of Amanda Kleinman's "Sesame Street"-style video portrait. Some take the measure of the man -- literally, as in Jeff Spaulding's 6-foot-4-inch tower of Lego doll heads with shoulder-length plastic hair the same style as Barlow's. As with much portraiture, the muse takes second place to the artist's vision. So the question remains: Who is Philip Barlow?