Marjorie Acker was a Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C.

Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 based artist and the niece of artists Gifford

Gifford Beal

Gifford Beal was an American artist noted for his work as a painter, watercolorist, printmaker and muralist.-Early life:Born in New York City, Gifford Beal was the youngest son in a family of six surviving children...

 and Reynolds Beal

Reynolds Beal

Reynolds Beal was an American artist, first an Impressionist, then a Modernist, a marine environmentalist, and brother of the New York Alpha Chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity at Cornell University. The elder brother of co-painter Gifford Beal was born in New York City or the Bronx...

.

She grew up in Ossining, New York.
She studied at the Art Students League from 1915 to 1918 with Kenneth Hayes Miller

Kenneth Hayes Miller

Kenneth Hayes Miller was an American painter and teacher.Born in Oneida, New York, he studied at the Art Students League of New York with Kenyon Cox, Henry Siddons Mowbray and with William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art. He died in New York City.-Students:Miller taught at the Art...

, Boardman Robinson

Boardman Robinson

Boardman Robinson was a Canadian-American artist, illustrator and cartoonist.-Early years:Boardman Robinson was born September 6, 1876 in Nova Scotia, Canada. He spent his childhood in England and Canada, before coming to Boston in the first half of the 1890s...

, and Gifford Beal.
She was married to Duncan Phillips

Duncan Phillips (art collector)

Duncan Phillips was a Washington, DC, based art collector and critic who played a seminal role in introducing America to modern art. The grandson of James H. Laughlin, a banker and co-founder of the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company, Phillips was born in Pittsburgh and moved with his family to...

 in October 1921.
She was the associate director, and then director of The Phillips Collection from 1925 until her retirement in 1972 when her son Laughlin took over.

Her best known piece is Night Baseball painted in 1951, showing Joe DiMaggio at bat against the Washington Senators.

External links

• Biography (The Phillips Collection)
• Biography (Adapted from The Eye of Duncan Phillips, Yale University Press, 1999)
• Sample of her works (American Art)
• "Marjorie Acker", White House Tapes April 06, 1971