There are only a few weeks left to catch the “Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism” exhibition on at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska. The show comprises 38 paintings from the Joslyn Art Museum’s Impressionist collection and the Brooklyn Museum’s collection, a selection of mid nineteenth to early twentieth-century French and American landscapes. The likes of Claude Monet and Gustave Courbet are joined by some of the more important American Impressionists of the time, such as Frederick Childe Hassam and John Singer Sargent.

Other French artists included in this joint venture between the Joslyn Art Museum and the Brooklyn Museum are Camille Pissarro, Eugène Boudin and Jules Breton. There are also a number of American artists who lived and painted in Giverny, including Theodore Robinson, Willard Leroy Metcalf and Julian Alden Weir. Impressionism was not a definable style with a unified set of principles, but rather a group of artists who came together with shared ideas. The juxtaposition of various paintings enables viewers to appreciate this first-hand.

Also on exhibit at the Joslyn Art Museum at this time are three paintings from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The three paintings from Boston that make up a small companion exhibit, entitled Beyond Impressionism, are:
Vincent van Gogh’s Enclosed Field with Ploughman, painted in 1889
Claude Monet’s Meadow at Giverny, painted in 1886
Paul Gauguin’s Women and a White Horse, painted in 1903

The two exhibitions are on until 12 September 2010. For further details, visit the Joslyn Art Museum’s website, click here.

Towards the end of the 1880s it is said that Pierre-Auguste Renoir became dissatisfied with Impressionism, then still a relatively recent movement in the development of Western art. He began to travel more widely, first within France and then to Algeria, Spain and Italy, where he became influenced by other artists, including Delacroix, Velazquez and Titian. It is widely thought that his work during this time is his most fertile and innovative. And it is his paintings and sculptures from the final decades of his life that make up the Late Renoir exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Renoir and his family moved to the Mediterranean coast, specifically the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the hope that the climate there would help his rheumatoid arthritis. He frequently painted landscapes around the town, including the vineyards at Cagnes, pictured below.

This is just one of about 80 of Renoir’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Also, included in the exhibition are twenty works by other European artists of the day, including Aristide Maillol, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. The inclusion of the art of these painters attests to the influence Renoir had on the younger generations of artists at the time.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Vineyards at Cagnes, 1908. Oil on canvas. 45 cm x 59 cm. © Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Colonel and Mrs. E. W. Garbisch.

You can order the exhibition catalogue via Amazon:

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The Renoir exhibition is on until 6 September: exhibition website.

Have 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, part of the Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay collection on the road while renovations in Paris are under way for the 25 anniversary in 2011, will open in Nashville 15 October 2010.

There will be about 100 mid to late 19th-century French paintings from the permanent collection of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris. The exhibition tells the story of the birth of Impressionism in France in the mid 19th century, and its developemnt through to the last 19th century, through a selection of important works by artists such as Courbet, Manet, Cézanne, Monet, and Renoir.

Although this is the same exhibition that was on show previously in Madrid and then San Francisco, the Nashville exhibition will have seventeen paintings not seen in the two previous shows. These include:
The Dance Foyer at the Opera on Rue Le Peletier by Edgar Degas (1872)
Ballet Rehearsal on the Set by Edgar Degas (1874)
Argenteuil by Claude Monet (1875)
Church at Vetheuil by Claude Monet (1879)
Emile Zola by Edouard Manet (1868)
The Woman with a White Jabot by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1880)
William Sisley by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1864)

“The Musee d’Orsay has the finest collection of French mid-to-late 19th-century art in the world,” said Frist Center Executive Director Susan H. Edwards. “In sharing these masterworks with the cities of Madrid, San Francisco and Nashville, the Musee d’Orsay offers an unparalleled cultural experience to people who might not have the opportunity to travel to Paris.”

Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay at the First runs from 15 October 2010 through to 23 January 2011. Click here, to read more information about the exhibition. If you go and see the exhibition, please return and leave a comment below.

Edouard Manet, The Fife Player, 1866. Oil on canvas. 160 cm x 97 cm. © Musée d’Orsay.

Be prepared, get the exhibition catalogue from Amazon:

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Currently on show at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne is a collection of 19th and 20th Century European masters from the permanent collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Besides a remarkable collection of German artists, the exhibition also includes art works by some of the greatest French, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss masters of the 19th and 20th centuries. Chronological themes therefore range from Neo-Classicism, to Realism, Impressionism and Symbolism works, as well as some German Expressionist paintings and sculpture.

But one of the paintings, Claude Monet’s Le déjeuner (1868, pictured here below), will be making an early departure from the Melbourne exhibition on 1 September. The departure is a planned one, because the painting will be included in the Monet retrospective at the Grand Palais, Paris, opening on 22 September 2010.

In 1870, Monet submitted Le déjeuner to the Paris Salon, but it was rejected because it was thought to be too radical in the way it portrayed a simple domestic scene.

The Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Frances Lindsay, said: “The last chance to see this superb painting will be Wednesday 1 September. The Gallery will be open until 9pm to ensure the painting is sent off to Paris in style! We will be holding a very special art after dark event for all Monet fans featuring Melbourne’s very own gypsy brass band The WooHoo Revue followed by a can-can extravaganza.”

Claude Monet, Le déjeuner, 1868. Oil on canvas. 231.5 cm x 151.5 cm. © Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main.

The exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th–20th Century is on display at NGV International, Melbourne, until Sunday 10 October. The exhibition is open daily from 10 am – 5 pm, and on Wednesday until 9pm: NGV exhibition website. The audio tour of the exhibition can be downloaded from the website.

If you need a hotel for your stay, follow the link to choose from over 170 hotels in Melbourne.

To mark the Normandy Impressionism summer Festival 2010, the French Post Office have produced a collection of Impressionist stamps. The collection, entitled ‘Normandie, berceau des Impressionnistes‘ (Normandy, cradle of Impressionism), features 10 different paintings of Normandy landscapes by leading Impressionist painters.

Given his importance, there are three of Claude Monet’s paintings included in the special collection: his view of Rouen (1892), one of his water lilies paintings from 1908, and a painting of the wonderful cliffs at Etretat from 1884. Monet’s mentor, Eugène Boudin is featured twice with a seascape of clouds (1854-9) and the Fisherman at Villerville (1862-5).

The other five Impressionist painters included in the special set of Impressionist stamps are: Edgar Degas, At the Races in the Country (1869); Camille Pissaro with his view of the port of Dieppe (1902) and a view of the port at Le Havre (1903); Édouard Vuillard’s Garden at Amfreville (1905-7); and Paul Signac’s The Lighthouse of Gatteville (1934)

The set of stamps come attached to a presentation page that has some information about each of the original paintings and where there were taken from, and only costs €8.90. This can be ordered online at La Post’s website, which is available in English, German, Italian and Spanish besides French (the link goes straight to the Impressionist collection page).

If any MGN readers are stamp collectors or collectors of all things Impressionism, as I am, and you are having problems buying a set on La Poste’s website, I am more than happy to arrange this for you – just get in touch with me via the contact page (given I really do have a B&B at Basse Copette, I think you can rely on a safe transaction).

Not surprisingly there have been a great many number of books written about the Impressionists and their gardens. Monet not only created his garden, he made his garden famous by painting it and the various parts of it over and over again. Until now, however, there has not been an exhibition that focuses specifically on the Impressionist artists and their gardens. A major, new exhibition, jointly organised by the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (31 July – 17 October 2010) and Museo Thyssen–Bornemisza, Madrid (16 November 2010 – 13 February 2011), Impressionist Gardens, will change this.

Impressionist Gardens is a collection of over 90 paintings brought together from collections around the world that is specifically devoted to exploring the significance, the origins, and the influence of the Impressionist garden.

Obviously it was the great names in Impressionism, such as Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Manet and Sisley who were responsible for this new way of painting the garden. A continued significance of which can be seen in the work of artists such as Cézanne and Bonnard, who followed immediately after the Impressionists. The influence of this new trend can then be seen in the way in which these ideas spread to other European and American artists, such as van Gogh, Gauguin, Klimt and Sargent, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Besides this truly ground-breaking exhibition, a number of complementary events and activities have been organised by the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh.

Impressionist Gardens is on show in Edinburgh at the National Galleries of Scotland from 31 July through to 17 October 2010, when it will then move to Madrid and the Museo Thyssen–Bornemisza (16 November 2010 – 13 February 2011). This will be the only venue in the UK to show the exhibition. For information about the exhibition time, including prices, opening times and buying tickets, visit the National Gallery of Scotland’s website, click here.

You can buy your copy of the exhibition catalogue before your visit from Amazon, cheaper than at the Gallery:

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I could go on talking about Monet for hours! I’m absolutely fascinated by this artist and by the way he painted. His paintings about his gardens in Giverny are mystical and mysterious, but also experimental and he kept studying on them. He could dive into a subject and paint it over and over to make it look exactly like the vision he had in mind. Monet was one of the first abstract painters, he was keen on experimenting and creating a new art movement. Arne Quinze

The city of Rouen is one of a number of towns and cities in Normandy taking part in one of the greatest festivals in celebration of Impressionism and the Impressionist artists in 2010. To mark this occasion in a grand way, Arne Quinze was commissioned to create an installation; he created Camille for Rouen, a tribute to Camille Doncieux, Claude Monet’s wife.

This amazing installation has been constructed out of ’sticks’ of wood that creates a kind of canopy over the Boieldieu Bridge that spans the River Seine. The official launch of Arne Quinze’s Camille in Rouen was at the beginning of July, and it will remain in place until the end of August.

Read more about the artwork in an interview on the Irenebrination: Notes on Art, Fashion and Style website with Arne Quinze about Camilleand Rouen here. (From where the above quote from Quinze was taken.)

I took the following photographs on Bastille Day, 14 July 2010, in the afternoon and then in the evening during the spectacular firework display that lasted for some 25 minutes.

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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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Besides Monet’s house and garden and the Musée de Impressionismes, there are at least six other galleries in Giverny that display contemporary art. Some of these are dedicated to the work of one artist, others have a rolling programme of exhibitions throughout the season. So if you are visiting Giverny for the day or even staying in or near Giverny overnight there really is a lot to do.

One of these galleries, Galerie 60, will be hosting a joint exhibition in July of art by Mary Towsey, Amanda Hewitt and Alan Bonner. Galerie 60 is a wonderful exhibition space, from the road it looks small, but as you enter you immediately realise how wrong that initial impression was. The joint exhibition will have about 60 pieces, paintings and sculptures.

Mary Towsey studied art at Goldsmith’s College, University of London, as well as at the Epsom College of Art. Mary’s art has been exhibited extensively in both France and England. Like Claude Monet, Mary has a house in Vétheuil and also like Monet has been inspired by the wonderful surrounding landscape. Her vibrant use of colour has rightly earned Mary a great reputation as a landscape painter.

Mary Towsey’s ‘Clacheloze’.

Joining Mary in the July exhibition in Giverny is her daughter Amanda Hewitt. Amanda, who won the Lions Club National Prize for Sculpture in 2008, is inspired by the female form, particularly in her pregnant state, as well as the theme of mother and child.

Amanda Hewitt’s ‘La Femme Enceinte’.

Alan Bonner is an inspiration to all of those who yearn to be an artist but never quite dared to take the necessary first step. Alan came to art late in his career, but his acrylic paintings certainly do not show a lack of experience. He started out with figurative paintings, but has increasingly moved towards a more abstract/cubist feel.

One of Alan Bonner’s paintings to be on show at Galerie 60, Giverny this summer.

The exhibition opens on 3 July, and runs through to 30 July 2010.

The first major exhibition of Claude Monet’s work in over 30 years will take place at the Grand Palais in Paris from September 22, 2010 to January 24, 2011. It has been reported that there will be over 200 paintings on display from both French and foreign museums.

This showcase event for the Paris arts calendar in 2010 will trace the 19th century painter’s long career, starting with his early landscapes in Normandy and the Paris region from the 1870s through to the iconic and well known depictions of his garden and ponds in Giverny.

Following a major Picasso show at the Grand Palais in 2008 that attracted 784,000 visitors, the Monet exhibition is predicted to attract in excess of half a million visitors.

In anticipation of the vast numbers of people expected to attend the exhibition, and in an attempt to allow people to book tickets in advance so as not to be disappointed during their forthcoming trips to Paris, tickets will be available online as of Monday 19 April 2010.

Update: book your tickets here.

Not only is the exhibition itself one not to be missed by anyone with a passion for Claude Monet’s art, or impressionist art in general, but the setting in the Grand Palais will provide a wonderful ambiance. Built for the Universal Exhibition in 1900, the Grand Palais covers some 775,000 square feet in the form of an H and its glass roof is recognisable from a long distance, the biggest in Europe.

See also the following article that gives details of the three museums with paintings by Monet in Paris.

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