As the first resident Anglo artist in Taos, Phillips began collecting Indigenous art and material culture objects by 1898. When the Taos Society of Artists formed in 1915, their bylaws note that one of the group’s purposes was to “preserve and promote the native art.”

Several of the artists were avid collectors of contemporary Native art made by living artists. They would incorporate those pieces into their paintings, thereby disseminating their recreated images of Native art to their audience across the country. For many living outside the American Southwest, this was their first glimpse of the beauty of Native American pottery, basketry, and beadwork.