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Museum & Gardens

Monday Closed
Tuesday Closed
Wednesday 9am-5pm
Thursday 9am-5pm
Friday 9am-4pm, 5:30-9:30pm*
Saturday 9am-4pm, 5:30-9:30pm*
Sunday 9am-4pm, 5:30-9:30pm*

*Festival Hours. Info & Tickets here!

Killing-the-Negative_13 (1/6)

Joel Daniel Phillips (American, b. 1989). Killed Negative #13 / After Arthur Rothstein, 2020. Charcoal, graphite, and ink, 56 1/2 x 42". Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody. © Joel Daniel Phillips

Killing-the-Negative_58 (2/6)

Joel Daniel Phillips (American, b. 1989). Killed Negative #58 / After Arthur Rothstein, 2022. Charcoal, graphite, and ink, 42 × 56 1/2". Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Museum purchase, Taber Art Fund, 2022.5. © Joel Daniel Phillips

Killing-the-Negative_62 (3/6)

Joel Daniel Phillips (American, b. 1989). Killed Negative #62 / After Arthur Rothstein, 2022. Oil on canvas, 60 x 40". Collection of Martin Muller. © Joel Daniel Phillips

Killing-the-Negative_6 (4/6)

Joel Daniel Phillips (American, b. 1989). Killed Negative #6 / After John Vachon, 2020. Charcoal, graphite, and ink, 80 x 44". Collection of Holbrook Lawson. © Joel Daniel Phillips

Killing-the-Negative_64 (5/6)

Joel Daniel Phillips (American, b. 1989). Killed Negative #64 / After Unknown Photographer, 2023. Charcoal, graphite, and ink, 42 x 56 1/2". Collection of Jay Lawson. © Joel Daniel Phillips

Killing-the-Negative_68 (6/6)

Joel Daniel Phillips (American, b. 1989). Killed Negative #68 / After Unknown Photographer, 2023. Charcoal, graphite, and ink, 42 1/2 x 56 1/2". Collection of Rob Coretz. © Joel Daniel Phillips

Killing the Negative

Philbrook
Feb 21, 2026 - May 24, 2026

Killing the Negative: A Conversation in Art & Verse combines the meticulous and sensitive drawings of artist Joel Daniel Phillips with powerful poems by distinguished writers, including lead poet, Quraysh Ali Lansana.

In 2019, while looking through old photographs, Phillips stumbled upon a 1936 image by Walker Evans. A gaping black hole in its center stopped Phillips in his tracks. Curiosity led him to more hole-punched negatives, all originating from the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a government agency that sent photographers across the U.S. to document widespread poverty during the Great Depression. Phillips showed them to poet Quraysh Ali Lansana and the two developed Killing the Negative, a project that fuses drawings inspired by these “killed” negatives with original poems written in response. The unique pairings take us to the intersection of representation, truth, and power.

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