The New York Times-20080125-Philip Conisbee- 62- National Gallery Curator- -Obituary -Obit--

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Philip Conisbee, 62, National Gallery Curator; [Obituary (Obit)]

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Philip Conisbee, a curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington who organized some of that museum's most popular exhibitions, died on Jan. 16 at his home in Washington. He was 62.

The cause was complications of lung cancer, said Deborah Ziska, a National Gallery spokeswoman.

Mr. Conisbee's specialty was French art from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, but his most resounding achievement was a presentation of paintings by a Dutch artist. Working with curators at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, he organized the 1998 exhibition Van Gogh's Van Goghs, which became one of the National Gallery's 25 most highly attended shows. It attracted nearly 480,500 visitors, and more than 900,000 people saw it when it traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

In 2006 Mr. Conisbee organized, along with the Musee Granet in Aix-en-Provence, Cezanne in Provence, seen by 335,049 visitors.

Other important exhibitions included The Golden Age of Danish Painting, which Mr. Conisbee produced at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1993 while a curator there; and Georges de La Tour and His World, which opened at the National Gallery in 1996.

Philip Conisbee was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on Jan. 3, 1946, and grew up in London. He studied art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, earning a doctorate in 1978. From 1974 to 1986 he was a lecturer in European art history at the University of Leicester.

In 1986 Mr. Conisbee moved to the United States and became an associate curator of French paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Two years later he was appointed curator of European painting and sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1993 he went to the National Gallery, where he was curator of French paintings until promoted to senior curator of European paintings in 1998. He became a United States citizen in 1994.

In addition to writing many exhibition catalog essays and articles and reviews for scholarly journals, magazines and newspapers, Mr. Conisbee published two books: Painting in 18th-Century France (1981) and Chardin (1985). In recognition of his services to French culture, he received the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur in 2004.

Mr. Conisbee is survived by his wife, Faya Causey, director of academic programs at the National Gallery; two children from his first marriage, to Susan Baer, which ended in divorce, Ben Conisbee Baer of New York and Molly Conisbee-Rijke of Bath, England; a stepson, Jan Causey Frel of San Francisco; and his father, Paul Conisbee, of London; and brother, Alan Conisbee, of London.

[Illustration]PHOTO: Philip Conisbee (PHOTOGRAPH BY NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, 2003)