Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces to Houston for 2011

Édouard Manet, The Railway, 1873. Oil on canvas, 24 cm x 19.45 cm @ The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
“These are not things that are in storage and are sort of being hauled out. These are [the National Gallery's] masterpieces.” Helga Aurisch, MFAH curator of European art.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, will host a major exhibition of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces from the collections of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. for the first half of 2011.

The Houston show will have a selection of 50 paintings from the National Gallery of Art´s 19th century French collection while the galleries that usually house these works are closed for repair and renovation. The National Gallery´s Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection includes work from the greatest artists active in France from the mid 19th century to the early 20th century, a collection that ranks amongst the finest of any collection in the world. These include works by Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh.

‘Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art’ is to be installed in the MFAH’s European galleries, Audrey Jones Beck Building. The MFAH’s collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art will be kept on display for the duration of the temporary exhibition. But, about 50 works from other periods will be temporarily removed to make way for the loan pieces.

To accompany the exhibition will be a 184-page, fully illustrated book that provides a history of the collection and individual entries on each painting.

The exhibition opens 20 February, and runs through to 22 May 2011. Entry will be by timed-entry tickets, and these go on sale from 13 December 2010. Click here to link through to the Museum of Fine Arts’ website.

Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol —Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875. Oil on canvas, 19.48 cm x 24 cm @ The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

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