Master works of art get their space

The technique for showing the exhibition “El Greco to Picasso From the Phillips Collection” is the equivalent of putting speed bumps in a parking lot. And it works.

The gallery walls of the Denver Art Museum are a simple white, and the paintings are off-center. Some walls hold no more than two paintings.

“We want to prevent people from running through the hallways to the Impressionists,” curator Timothy Standring said. “At the same time, we have these little teasers of what is to come. It’s anticipatory.”

Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” is hidden behind a wall. No painting is hung opposite it, so crowds have more room to back up and take a look. It is only the second time the work has left the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., in the past 15 years, where it has hung in the former home of steel heir Duncan Phillips since 1923.

While a new center for modern art studies is being built at the Phillips museum, the Renoir and 52 other European works are being shown around the country. The works have appeared at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Phoenix Art Museum and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y.

“If it wasn’t for the construction I wouldn’t be able to justify sending ‘The Boating Party’ and comparable works on the road because they are so well loved and frequently visited,” said Jay Gates, director of the Phillips.

The Denver museum gives the paintings plenty of space. “Our team thought very hard about negative spaces,” Standring said. There are large areas with nothing shown. Two Van Goghs -- “Entrance to the Public Gardens in Arles” and “House at Auvers” -- occupy an entire wall.

“I think the white makes you more involved,” said Ann Trask, an artist and retired art teacher who had seen the works at the Phillips. “I’ve seen a lot of art shows that try to create an atmosphere. When you have more than one great artist, a single theme is difficult.”

Once the exhibition completes its Denver run Jan. 4, it goes to the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tenn., the Pierre Gianadda Foundation in Switzerland and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2005.