Establishing his home in Taos, Phillips developed a particularly strong interest in Indian subject matter and strove to preserve in his paintings the romantic aura in which his imagination clothed the Native Americans. He was very close to the Indians of the Taos area and made their concerns his own. He was instrumental in obtaining a government prohibition against prospecting on the Taos Indians sacred mountain. Phillips was one of the original six members of the Taos Society of Artists, organized in 1912 at the home of Dr. Martin. The other members of the group were Couse, who was its first president, Berninghaus, Blumenschein, Dunton and Sharp. Phillips deep respect and admiration for the Indian and his way of life led to a never-ending effort to capture the vital spirit of these people on canvas. He idealized his figures, which reflected his romantic vision of the great pure land of the Southwest.
Phillips was one of the earliest artists to settle in Taos. He shared with Ernest Blumenschein the fortunate accident, which introduced them to Taos when their wagon broke down near Questa in the course of a western sketching tour in 1898. The two men had been close friends for sometime. Both studied at L’Academie Julien in Paris when Joseph Sharp first suggested to them the possibility of painting in the Southwest. Before going to Paris to study with Benjamin Constant and Jean Paul Lauren’s, Phillips had studied at the Art Student League and the National Academy of Design, where he had maintained a shared studio in New York for five years. After his return from Paris, he shared a studio in New York with Blumenschein until the summer of 1898, when the two set off on a sketching trip into Colorado. In the fall they purchased a wagon in Denver and headed for Mexico. Once they saw Taos, their trip was at an end.