Exhibition: ‘Birth of Impressionism’ in San Francisco
Oh to be in San Francisco this summer! The beautiful West Coast city aside, the two Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the de Young and the Legion of Honor, are hosting two major Impressionist exhibitions. At de Young is Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, while the Legion of Honor is hosting Impressionist Paris: City of Light, a special exhibition that provides historical background to de Young’s Birth of Impressionism show.
Through one hundred paintings of some of the great artists living and painting in France from the mid to late nineteenth century this exhibition demonstrates the changes that took place in Western art at this time, i.e. the birth of what was to be called Impressionism.
The following is a list of just a few of the paintings on display at de Young this summer:
The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)
Racehorses Before the Stands by Edgar Degas (1866–1868)
Family Reunion by Frédéric Bazille (1867)
The Magpie by Claude Monet (1868)
The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872)
The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873–1876)
The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)
The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)
Red Roofs, Corner of the Village, Winter Effect by Camille Pissarro (1877)
Saint-Lazare Station by Claude Monet (1877)
Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet (1878)
Snow at Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley (1878)
L’Estaque by Paul Cézanne (1878–1879)
Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (1878–1879)
The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879)
An impressive list of artists and paintings indeed!
Claude Monet. Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878. 1878. Oil on canvas. 49 cm x 80 cm. ©RMN, Musée d’Orsay.
Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at de Young runs from 22 May through to 6 September, 2010. This exhibition will be followed by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, 25 September 2010 until 18 January 2011.
Click here, for more information about the exhibition. If you have seen the exhibition, leave a comment below.
Get your copy of the exhibition catalogue from Amazon before you go:
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2 comments
I was pleasantly surprised! I didn’t expect it to be quite so. Well. PERFECT! The audio commentary is a must and well worth the $7 since you can turn it on easily to any numbered portrait you feel inclined to hear about and the repeat if you get distracted. There was a wonderful poem about a man smoking a cigar that I tried to memorize but could not! Ah lost youth! The restrictions on photography kept the crowds from distracting flashes and chatter on cell phones. NO ELECTRONIC DEVICES ALLOWED! Polite yet burly hosts inform guests of such rules with appropriate tact. I was amazed at how close we were allowed to be to these magnificent paintings. I worried too! What if there is an earthquake?? Are they safe? I would go see them if I were you just in case…
[...] paintings will travel. The Birth of Impressionism exhibition, currently on show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco, is headed next for the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee. The exhibition, [...]
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