Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European paintings and curator of French paintings at the National Gallery of Art, died of complications arising from lung cancer on January 16. The 62-year-old British-born curator, who became a US citizen in 1994, had worked in London, Boston, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and was involved in numerous scholarly and popular exhibitions, including “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs,” 1998, “George de la Tour and His World,” 1996-97, and “Cézanne in Provence,” 2006, to name a few.
Conisbee was born January 3, 1946, in the United Kingdom. He moved to the United States in 1986 and was a resident of Georgetown in Washington, D.C.
In 1993, he was named curator of French paintings at the National Gallery of Art. “Van Gogh’s Van Goghs,” which Conisbee co-curated with the staff of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, was immensely popular and had a total attendance of nearly 500,000, making it one of the top 25 most highly attended exhibitions in the history of the National Gallery of Art, which opened to the public in 1941.
“Cézanne in Provence,” for which Conisbee was co-curator with Denis Coutagne, director of the Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence, had an attendance of 335,049. As an invited summer scholarship fellow at the Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., in 2007, he continued his research on Paul Cézanne’s paintings in the National Gallery of Art for a catalog of the collection and for a book devoted to Cézanne’s portrait “Man in a Blue Smock” for the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas.
One of Conisbee’s favorite exhibitions, “Georges de La Tour and His World,” which he curated, illustrated the place and meaning of La Tour’s art in the context of early Seventeenth Century culture.
Conisbee received two honors from the French government for his services to French culture: 2000 Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres and the 2004 Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
Said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art, “Philip brought to the gallery a wealth of knowledge of European art and a great enthusiasm for sharing his insights. He demonstrated outstanding leadership throughout his career in London and Boston, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where we worked together, and here at the National Gallery in Washington. He will be missed by his many his friends and colleagues.”
He is survived by his wife, Faya Causey Conisbee; his father, Paul Conisbee, and his brother, Alan Conisbee, both of London; and three children, Ben Conisbee Baer of New York City, Molly Conisbee-Rijke, Bath, England, and Jan Causey Frel, stepson, San Francisco. His marriage to Susan Baer ended in divorce.
Burial will be in Highgate Cemetery, London. Arrangements are being coordinated by De Vol’s Funeral Home on Wisconsin Avenue, NW.
