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“Aviation was my first artistic love,” says William
S. Phillips, “but my true, enduring love remains my Christian
faith, home and family. So it is my pleasure to combine all
of it in my work. The historical aviation subjects, I research;
the contemporary and nostalgic subjects, I live.”
Phillips grew up loving art but never thought he could make
it his livelihood. At college he majored in criminology, and
he had been accepted into law school when four of his paintings
were sold at an airport restaurant. That was all the incentive
he needed to begin his work as a fine art painter.
Bill Phillips is now the aviation artist of choice for many
American heroes and the nostalgic landscape artist of choice
for many collectors. Bill’s strengths as a landscape painter
are what gave him an edge in the aviation field: respect and
reverence for a time and place. When one sees his aviation pieces,
thoughts are about the courageous individuals who risked their
lives for our freedom. In Bill’s nostalgic works, the viewer
understands fully what that freedom is... the precious values
that make life worth living.
After one of his paintings was presented to King Hussein of
Jordan, Phillips was commissioned by the Royal Jordanian Air
Force. He developed sixteen major paintings, many of which now
hang in the Royal Jordanian Air Force Museum in Amman. The Smithsonian
Institution’s National Air and Space Museum presented a
one-man show of Phillips’ work in 1986; he is one of only
a few artists to have been so honored.
In 1988, Phillips was chosen to be a U.S. Navy combat artist.
For his outstanding work, the artist was awarded the Navy’s
Meritorious Public Service Award and the Air Force Sergeants
Association’s Americanism Medal. In 1991, three of Phillips’
works were chosen as part of the top 100 in “Art for the
Parks,” the prestigious annual fund-raiser for the National
Park Service, and one painting received the “Art History
Award” from the National Park Foundation.
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