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The only American artist to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions, Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born into an upper-middle-class family in Pennsylvania. Despite her family’s objections, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia between 1860 and 1865. Over the next nine years, Cassatt would travel back and forth between the United States and Europe before settling in Paris in 1874.
Cassatt began exhibiting her artwork regularly in the official Paris Salon starting in 1868 with a style marked by a rich palette and methodical paint application that revealed her study of European Old Master paintings. However, she grew increasingly interested in the works of avant-garde contemporaries, such as Gustave Courbet and Edgar Degas, and her style eventually reflected the lighter colors and freer brushstrokes common in Impressionist artwork. As a result of her evolving aesthetic, the Salon’s conservative jury rejected both of her submissions in 1877, prompting Degas to invite her to participate in the fourth Impressionist exhibition held in 1879. This invitation set the foundation for their lifelong relationship as friends and collaborators.
Cassatt would go on to participate in the fifth, sixth, and eighth Impressionist shows. During her time working closely with the Impressionists, she began producing works in pastel rather than oil paint, a medium that would become incredibly popular with both European and American consumers in the 1870s and 1880s. Cassatt began to focus on her most enduring theme during the late 1880s: mothers and children. Even though Cassatt never married or became a mother herself, her examinations of intimate moments shared between children and their caretakers are laden with nuance and tenderness.
After the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886, Cassatt expanded her practice, painting murals and producing prints. In 1892 she was invited to produce a mural for the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After a year of preparation, Cassatt debuted the mural, now lost, titled Modern Woman, in the Women’s Building. Several related paintings and drawings illustrate her design, which featured the modern woman reaching for the fruits of knowledge, reflecting her proud stance as an activist for women’s rights and suffrage. First introduced to printmaking by Degas, Cassatt went on to produce several series of prints that incorporate motifs from Japanese woodblock prints. In addition to her artistic career, she established herself as an art advisor to wealthy Americans and helped them build important collections of Impressionist art. Although cataracts resulted in her retirement in the late 1910s, Cassatt remained an influential figure in the Parisian and American artistic landscape until her death.
Closer Looking: The Impressionists
Q&A with the Curator
is Chief Curatorial and Research Officer and The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art. Since joining the DMA in 2016, she has curated/co-curated numerous exhibitions, including Van Gogh and the Olive Groves (2021–2022); Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris (2021); and Berthe Morisot, Woman Impressionist (2018–2019). Myers previously held curatorial positions at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Saint Louis Art Museum. She completed her MA and PhD in Art History at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University.
The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse explores the fascinating story of Impressionism from its birth in 1874 to its legacy in the early 20th century. Told almost entirely through the DMA’s exceptional holdings, this exhibition reveals the rebellious origins of the independent artist collective known as the Impressionists and the revolutionary course they charted for modern art.
Breaking with tradition in both how and what they painted, as well as how they showed their work, the Impressionists redefined what constituted cutting-edge contemporary art. The unique innovations of its core members, such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Berthe Morisot, set the foundation against which following generations of avant-garde artists reacted, from Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh to Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse.
Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, The Impressionist Revolution invites you to reconsider these now beloved artists as the scandalous renegades they were, as well as the considerable impact they had on 20th-century art.
Through the Lens
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The Seine at Lavacourt, 1880. Claude Monet. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, Munger Fund, 1938.4.M.
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From coast to coast, most of the great art museums in the U.S. show an overwhelming preference for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, and the DMA is no exception. Americans were among the first serious collectors of French Impressionism. Our relatively young country didn’t have its own deep-rooted art tradition or government-sanctioned art school that set the tone for what was and wasn’t considered important art. The result was a more generally open-minded attitude toward contemporary art production that started first with private individuals in the mid-1880s and then moved quickly to the public realm.
Many of the DMA’s peer institutions amassed their core holdings of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in the first half of the 20th century. Thanks to the generosity of the Munger Fund, the acquisition of two of the DMA’s most extraordinary holdings of this material—Monet’s Seine at Lavacourt and Pissarro’s Apple Harvest—were made in 1938 and 1955, respectively, following this general trend. To this day, these two paintings are among our most iconic and frequently requested works for loan. Despite this strong start, however, these paintings remained isolated within the DMA’s holdings until a surprisingly late date. The majority of the world-class collection featured in our exhibition came under the DMA’s roof in the last 30 years as some of our city’s greatest acts of philanthropy.
Though hard to imagine, at the time of Wendy and Emery Reves’s staggering gift in 1985, there were only about 10 paintings that could be described as Impressionist in the DMA’s galleries. Overnight the Museum acquired roughly 70 stunning paintings and works on paper by French avant-garde artists such as Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Van Gogh, among many others. From that moment forward, the DMA’s holdings of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism steadily grew through important gifts and purchases by local collectors and organizations like the Foundation for the Arts and the Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, which were established to benefit the Museum by building its global holdings. In 2018 the final bequest to the latter of 32 Impressionist and modernist masterpieces from the McDermott’s private collection, which includes examples by Caillebotte, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, and Signac, solidified the DMA’s place among the top collections of this artwork in the country.
Notably, this history of collecting Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in Dallas isn’t limited to the DMA. There are significant collectors of this material in our local community. I’m thrilled to be able to include a selection of incredible privately held paintings in the exhibition that reveal the impulse to acquire such innovative artwork is still alive and well in our city.
How is this exhibition unique to Dallas?
I started this project with the relatively straightforward goal of telling the story of Impressionism entirely through the DMA’s extraordinary holdings. That we can even do that is astounding and already sets this exhibition apart from the many others taking place around the world in 2024 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition. But I didn’t want to stop there. Investigations of Impressionism, whether in art history books or exhibitions, typically focus on the movement’s origins in the earlier 19th century. That is a great story, but it’s one that’s more frequently told. I wanted instead to look at the Impressionists’ comprehensive impact on their avant-garde peers as well as those who came up through the ranks shortly after, a subject I suspect is far less familiar.
Impressionism is often held apart from the explosion of different modernisms that proliferated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It can seem as if the Impressionists’ most radical innovations—the bright, anti-naturalistic palette, semi-abstract application of paint, and fixation on depicting the experience of modern living—ended in 1900, at which point the art world pivoted to something completely new. The process is of course far messier and more complex. Movements rarely unfold in straight lines from one to the next, following a neat chronology. Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Cassatt all lived to see the development of new avant-garde styles, such as Cubism and Fauvism, whose roots stem from the revolution they started with their cohort 40 years prior. I find it fascinating to trace the Impressionists’ significant and far-reaching fingers, especially where it’s least expected—for example, in Mondrian’s early work. The story of Impressionism is not simply about the artists who adopted or adapted their tenets, but also those who reacted against them. And this is the story that’s told in our show.
Apple Tree, Pointillist Version, 1908–1909. Piet Mondrian. Oil on composition board. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation, 1982.26.FA.
The Winkel Mill, Pointillist Version, 1908. Piet Mondrian. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation, 1982.25.FA.
What makes this exhibition different from other presentations of Impressionist works?
For this presentation I wanted to pull out all the stops and dazzle visitors through the sheer breadth and quality of the artwork in our care. That meant bringing out pieces that are rarely on view, such as light-sensitive works on paper that require long stretches of rest in storage to preserve their condition. Run, don’t walk, to see our astonishing holdings of vibrant pastels by Degas, Redon, and Toulouse-Lautrec; Van Gogh’s large drawing of the cafe terrace on the Place du Forum in Arles; and Matisse’s monumental paper cut-out composition Ivy in Flower, which hasn’t been on view since 2015.
Aside from these stunning works from the vault, the exhibition includes some of my all-time favorite paintings, such as Caillebotte’s The Path in the Garden from 1886. This deceptively simple painting is a tour-de-force in Impressionist bravado. Caillebotte built the composition around the contrasting complementary colors of red and green in order to increase each color’s overall vibrancy. He applied thick, gestural brushstrokes like spackle to suggest the most ephemeral elements in the painting: sun-dappled light and shadow. And by rendering the landscape with a sharply receding perspective, Caillebotte manages to lend this mundane view a sense of excitement, even mystery. The effect of light is so convincing that it’s actually quite challenging to install. Compared to the more muted palettes and subtle light effects deployed by Caillebotte’s peers, The Path in the Garden appears to project light outward—from a distance it can look like a window has been opened on the gallery wall. I always find myself drawn to it every time I walk past, and it’s even more incredible after a recent cleaning in preparation for this show.
There is also no substitute for the experience of getting up close to the works in the Reves Collection, something even I don’t get to do very often. Among the many treasures that reward close looking are Seurat’s Grassy Riverbank, a subtle yet evocative scene of dusk on the Seine during the artist’s brief flirtation with Impressionism, and Renoir’s The Seine at Chatou, a joyous landscape that literally comes in and out of focus in a frenzy of feathery strokes in acid colors.
Grassy Riverbank, 1881–1882. Georges Seurat. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.68.
Prostitutes, about 1893–1895. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Pastel on emery board. Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.75.
What are some of your must-see works in the exhibition?
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Today the works of the Impressionists are incredibly popular. Reproductions of their compositions—for example Monet’s water lilies or Degas’s dancers—are everywhere, from dorm room posters to the lids of chocolate boxes. This seemingly universal appreciation of Impressionism makes it easy to think this was always the case. But in the 1860s and 1870s, there was virtually no audience or collectors for Impressionist artwork, nor could you find it on the walls of museums.
It can be difficult for us to see these paintings as ugly, unfinished, and even offensive. Yet that’s exactly how critics and the public alike responded to the Impressionists’ production, which rejected the Western artistic tradition in just about every way possible. Some of the key aspects of their work that we take for granted, such as mundane middle-class subjects or sketch-like brushwork, were cutting-edge artistic innovations that subverted expectations for finished works deemed suitable for public consumption. Indeed, there was no venue for the exhibition or sale of this artwork in Paris at the time.
Despite how broadly we use the term nowadays, Impressionism did not originate as a style of artwork. Rather, the Impressionists emerged in 1874 as a collective of independent artists that were united by a shared vision of what modern art should be and the desire to publicly exhibit their work outside of France’s official, conservative art system. By framing these artists in this context, I hope to convey to our visitors a sense of the absolutely radical and challenging aspects of their individual approaches, to make strange or unfamiliar these beloved works in our collection, to deepen our appreciation of what at first glance may read simply as “pretty” pictures. Having established that foundation, visitors can then trace these rebel artists’ extraordinary legacy into the most daring modern movements that continue to resonate in the art produced today.
If visitors to this exhibition take away one thing about the Impressionists, what would it be?
In 1874 an artist’s collective that called itself the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. opened the first of what became eight group shows held over the course of 12 years. The participants in each exhibition varied, and, beyond a shared rejection of artistic tradition, so did their subjects and approaches. What unified these independent artists we now call the Impressionists was the desire to publicly exhibit their work.
In 19th-century Paris, the only public exhibition venue for living artists was the annual Salon, organized and juried by the state-run Academy of Fine Arts. Artists who diverged from Academic tradition frequently experienced rejection and were left with no other avenues to garner critical and financial success. By organizing their own exhibitions, the Impressionists bypassed the official system, an act that was as rebellious as it was entrepreneurial.
Mary Cassatt
Born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, 1844–died in Château de Beaufresne, Le Mesnil-Théribus, France, 1926
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Gustave Caillebotte
Unlike many of his Impressionist peers, Gustave Caillebotte was born into a wealthy upper-class family. After obtaining a law degree and serving time in the military, Caillebotte abandoned the law to pursue a career as an artist. After studying in the studio of the Academic painter Léon Bonnat for one year, he briefly attended the state-run École des Beaux-Arts in 1873; however, in 1874, after meeting Edgar Degas and attending the first Impressionist exhibition a few months later, he was soon drawn to the innovation and radical experimentation of these avant-garde artists. After a rejection from the Salon in 1875, Caillebotte began to rebel against the conservative Academic system.
In 1876 Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Degas invited Caillebotte to participate in the second Impressionist exhibition. He showed eight works and would go on to both organize and participate in most of the Impressionist exhibitions going forward. While Caillebotte’s commitment to capturing the reality of contemporary life was characteristic of the Impressionists, his artistic style is most often compared to Degas’s Realism. In the 1870s, Caillebotte most frequently painted urban cityscapes and interiors, which he uniquely rendered with angular, tilted perspectives.
After becoming dissatisfied with infighting among the Impressionists, Caillebotte withdrew from the artistic community in Paris after 1882, settling into a home he’d acquired in a town along the Seine River outside of Paris, where he remained for the rest of his life. Seascapes, riverbanks, and gardens replaced Paris cityscapes as the subjects of his paintings. At the age of 33, he ceased exhibiting his work and devoted himself to gardening and yachting. Nevertheless, he continued to paint and, much like Monet at Giverny, turned his attention to depicting the flowers in his garden in a loose style that contrasts with that of his urban scenes. Caillebotte only lived for about a decade at this residence before his untimely death at the age of 45.
Due to his substantial wealth, Caillebotte was able to support his Impressionist friends by purchasing their artwork and renting studio space for them. While still in his 20s, Caillebotte wrote a will that made clear his intentions to bequeath his significant collection of 67 paintings by his contemporaries to the French state. Aware of the public’s disdain for and condemnation of the avant-garde Impressionists and their work, he stipulated in his will that they were to be shown at the Musée du Luxembourg before moving to the Louvre, to prevent the State from hiding the works away in smaller museums across France. After several years of negotiations between the executors of his estate and representatives of the state, the French government only accepted 38 works in the bequest. Caillebotte’s worries about the controversial nature of Impressionist art would prove to be warranted. When the collection debuted at the Musée du Luxembourg in 1897, it provoked several violent protests. The collection was later transferred to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, where it became the foundation of the museum’s Impressionist collection.
Born in Paris, France, 1848–died in Gennevilliers, France, 1894
Paul Cezanne
After a brief stint in law school at the behest of his father, Paul Cézanne chose to pursue his artistic passions in Paris in 1861. There, he learned to paint in the informal studio of the Académie Suisse, where he met Camille Pissarro. Seeking more formal training, he attempted to enroll in the state-run École des Beaux-Arts, but, having failed to qualify, returned to Aix-en-Provence to work in his father’s bank. Nevertheless, Cézanne would return to Paris once more to continue his artistic pursuits the following year. After submitting many works to the Salon without success, Cézanne’s frustration with the French Academic system intensified throughout the 1860s.
In contrast to the work of Edouard Manet and Claude Monet, whom he befriended in 1866, Cézanne’s early works are characterized by an expressive style and dark palette. It was only in 1872, after establishing a close working relationship with Camille Pissarro, that Cézanne shifted his focus to depictions of nature and the use of a looser, freer technique that more closely aligned with those in the Impressionist circle. Cézanne presented three paintings at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. Of all the radical artists featured in the exhibition, he garnered the most biting and divisive criticism. He exhibited again with the group at the third exhibition in 1877, once more receiving the harshest criticism in the press. As a result, he would never exhibit his work with the Impressionists again.
Cézanne’s work in the 1880s and 1890s marked a divergence from many of the other Impressionists. Working mostly in his hometown of Aix-en-Provence and the coastal village of L’Estaque, he began experimenting with new modes of conveying perspective and form in still lifes and landscapes. The mountains, fields, and coasts that surrounded these areas became the subjects of many of his paintings. Moving away from naturalistic depictions of depth, Cézanne simplified his motifs, collapsing foreground with background and often building asymmetrical compositions. In lieu of volumetric shading, he employed modulated colors in short vertical brushstrokes to evoke spatial depth.
In the last years of his life, Cézanne continued to evolve his style, embracing vivid color and a new focus on texture, as well as new subjects such as bathers placed into his characteristically flattened landscapes. The inclusion of the human body provided a new medium for his experimentation with depth and form. Although Cézanne did not experience widespread acclaim during his life, his radical, semi-abstract approach exerted a tremendous influence on the development of modern art in the early 20th century. After seeing his work in a posthumous exhibition in 1907, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso cited Cézanne as an essential catalyst in the development of Cubism, with Braque describing him as “the only master for me.”
Born in Aix-en-Provence, France, 1839–died in Aix-en-Provence, France, 1906
Edgar Degas
While a legal profession may have satisfied the wishes of his father, it did not satisfy the young Edgar Degas. After only one term, he left law school to begin his formal artistic training at the École des Beaux-Arts and the studios of neoclassical painters. After studying at the École for only one year, he left to devote his time to copying works in the Louvre. It was there, in 1862, that he met Edouard Manet, an artist who would change the course of Degas's career.
Manet introduced Degas to a circle of young artists and writers that gathered at the Café Guerbois in Paris, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. As he grew close to this group of bohemians, Degas’s artistic focus began to shift away from the traditional history paintings and portraits that had dominated his career up to this point. In 1866 the Paris Salon accepted Degas’s submission of a painting depicting a jockey and his horse at the racetrack. This unquestionably contemporary scene marked a turning point in his career. Degas went on to become a painter of everyday life, with a preference for depicting horse races, performers, female laborers, and women bathing or dressing.
In 1874 Degas banded together with many of the artists he met through Manet at the Café Guerbois and helped organize the first Impressionist exhibition. Degas exhibited in seven of the group’s eight shows, only missing the seventh presentation in 1882. Although today he is considered an Impressionist artist, Degas rejected the label, viewing himself as more of a Realist painter. Unlike his Impressionist collaborators, Degas rarely painted en plein air (outdoors), preferring to work from memory and copious preparatory sketches.
After the Impressionists disbanded in 1886, Degas’s work became less naturalistic, with bolder colors and more expressive lines. Reflecting the influence of his friend Paul Gauguin, Degas’s work during the 1890s features a vivid, almost superficial palette. Although he moved away from naturalism, Degas never abandoned his belief in the importance of drawing and line that he cultivated in his early formal training. Due to his severely deteriorating vision, Degas began to work with sculpture more regularly in the last few decades of his career.
Born in Paris, France, 1834–died in Paris, France, 1917
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Paul Gauguin
Although he was born in Paris, Paul Gauguin departed France for Peru with his family at the age of one. After his father died on the voyage, Gauguin, his mother, and his two siblings lived with an uncle in Lima before returning to France in 1855. Gauguin abandoned his studies at the age of 17 to join the crew of a cargo ship that traveled between France and Rio de Janeiro. Over the next seven years, he traveled the world before finally settling in Paris, where he worked as a stockbroker.
Though he started as a casual hobbyist, Gauguin’s interest in painting transformed through his introduction to and relationship with Camille Pissarro. Although his early works feature a more muted Impressionist style, he embraced a more vivid palette and began experimenting with light and color after encouragement from Pissarro. At the fifth Impressionist exhibition in 1880, he showed eight works and would participate in the group’s shows from that point forward. Gauguin began working with ceramics in 1886 alongside his painting practice. Rather than using a wheel, he hand-formed his pottery into shapes that took inspiration from Indigenous American and Peruvian motifs.
In 1888 Gauguin traveled to Pont-Aven, a rural village in the Brittany region of France, in the hope of capturing the “primitive purity” of the Bretons in his art. Rejecting the artifice that he perceived in modern European culture, Gauguin sought out subjects and techniques that would bring him closer to what he saw as the unspoiled truth of the “primitive.” In Brittany he began working with Emile Bernard, a fellow avant-garde painter, and this resulted in a distinct shift in Gauguin’s style. Influenced by Bernard, he abandoned his Impressionist style for experimentations with Cloisonnism, or the use of flat planes of color demarcated by a line, like in stained glass. Alongside Bernard, Gauguin developed Synthetism, an artistic style that prioritized subjectivity, memory, and imagination. Drawing on Cloisonnism, Gauguin and Bernard sought to synthesize the observable world, the artist’s feelings, and aesthetic purity with this new style.
In pursuit of the idyllic, “primitive” truthfulness that he sought to capture in his art, Gauguin spent much of the last decade of his life in French Polynesia, arriving in Papeete on the island of Tahiti in 1891. There, Gauguin went on to produce paintings using a bold, vibrant palette, greatly simplified forms, and imagined subjects intended to convey the so-called exoticism he associated with Tahiti and its native inhabitants, including his teenage wife Tehamana, until his return to Paris in 1893.
Gauguin had hoped that French critics and collectors would respond well to his Tahitian works, but that was not the case. After suffering poor reviews and painting little during his time in Paris, he returned to Tahiti in July 1895. Gauguin continued to produce paintings, sculptures, and innovative prints throughout the rest of his life in French Polynesia. In 1901, he moved to the Marquesas Islands, where he would pass away just two years later. Gauguin’s emphasis on expressing subjective feelings and thoughts through schematized forms and unnaturalistic colors was foundational in the development of German Expressionism.
Born in Paris, France, 1848–died in Atuona, Hiva Oa, French Polynesia, 1903
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Claude Monet
By the age of 16, Claude Monet had established himself as a successful caricaturist in his hometown of La Havre in Normandy. His early work attracted the attention of Eugène Boudin, a landscape painter who specialized in coastal scenes and taught the young artist to paint outdoors. In 1862 Monet moved to Paris to pursue his artistic career and took lessons in the studio of the academic painter Charles Gleyre. There, he met several artists, including Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who would eventually join him in forming the Impressionist group.
Although Monet submitted several paintings to the Paris Salon in the second half of the 1860s, only two were accepted and he became disillusioned with the Academic system. The period that followed is marked by experimentation and collaboration as he developed a unique style. Working and traveling with both Sisley and Renoir, Monet attempted to apply his plein-air painting technique on monumental canvases with mixed success before turning his attention to scenes of urban leisure. After a stay in London, Monet settled at Argenteuil, a boating center and suburb of Paris, in 1870. Renoir, Sisley, and Edouard Manet, among others, flocked to Argenteuil to paint alongside him.
Monet was one of the key organizers of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. He continued to exhibit with the group until 1882, though he had already begun to distance himself. During this time, he traveled regularly to the south of France, Venice, and Rouen, where many of his most famous paintings were produced. After his departure from the Impressionist group exhibitions, Monet moved in 1883 to Giverny, where he would live for the rest of his life. In the 1890s, he began producing series of paintings that depicted single locations or motifs in varying weather and at different times of day. Through these series, Monet explored the drastic effects that atmosphere and light had on a given scene.
In Giverny, Monet built an extensive garden, eventually adding a water lily pond that became the focus of his production starting in the 1890s. This motif would occupy him for more than 20 years and resulted in many of his most enduring works, including the panoramic cycle of water lily panels that he gave to the French state. Housed in two oval rooms at the Orangerie Museum in Paris, the monumental installation opened to the public five months after Monet’s death in 1926.
Born in Paris, France, 1840–died in Giverny, France, 1926
Berthe Morisot
The daughter of an upper-middle-class family, Berthe Morisot was provided with lessons in drawing and painting, an education deemed appropriate for proper young women of her social station. Recognizing her precocious talent, Morisot’s family supported her desire to pursue a professional career as a painter, something quite rare for women at the time. While continuing her private training and producing copies at the Louvre Museum, Morisot met Camille Corot, a landscape painter considered by many to be a precursor to the Impressionists. Corot introduced Morisot to the practice of painting en plein air, or outdoors, rather than in the studio.
Morisot exhibited her work at the Paris Salon for the first time in 1864, receiving positive reviews. In 1868 she met the painter Edouard Manet, who became both an unofficial mentor and close friend. Their lives became even more interconnected after Manet introduced Morisot to his brother, Eugène Manet, whom she married in 1874. Morisot was among the original group of artists, and the only woman, who mounted the first Impressionist exhibition that year. She would go on to participate in seven of their eight shows, only missing the one held in 1879 due to the birth of her daughter, Julie Manet, who would appear frequently in her work from that point forward.
Morisot developed a unique painting style characterized by loose, gestural brushstrokes and a sketch-like approach to her subjects. Limited by her gender and social class, Morisot turned to scenes of feminine domesticity, whether set in Parisian apartments or rural gardens, as the backdrop for her radical formal experimentation. She was considered by many contemporary critics to be the most daring of all the Impressionists.
Morisot died in 1895 following a short bout with pneumonia. On her death certificate, she is listed as “without profession,” the custom for women of her social standing. Her legacy was celebrated the following year when Julie, together with Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, organized a blockbuster retrospective of her work in Paris.
Born in Bourges, France, 1841–died in Paris, France, 1895
Camille Pissarro
Unlike several of his Impressionist peers, Camille Pissarro was a primarily self-taught painter. Born in the Caribbean and educated in France, Pissarro began his artistic career in Saint Thomas and Caracas, Venezuela, where he set up a studio with the Danish painter Fritz Melbye for a time.
After returning to Paris in 1855, Pissarro began studying at the Académie Suisse, an informal art school, where he met both Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet. Although he achieved moderate success and consistently showed work at the Paris Salon between 1859 and 1870, Pissarro’s growing relationship with the artists that he met during his time in Suisse’s studio resulted in a desire to work independently from the formal, academic Salon system. In 1872 Pissarro began working closely with Cézanne, becoming his unofficial teacher. The two often painted side by side and reworked subjects that Pissarro had treated earlier in his career.
Together with other artists such as Berthe Morisot and Claude Monet, Pissarro helped organize the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. He would be the only artist to take part in all eight group shows. After the first exhibition ended in May 1874, the collector Gustave Arosa introduced Pissarro to a young Paul Gauguin, whom Pissarro began to mentor. Gauguin praised Pissarro’s influence throughout his career, describing him as a teacher of both art and life.
The only Impressionist to embrace Neo-Impressionism, Pissarro began experimenting with Pointillism after meeting Paul Signac and Georges Seurat in the late 1880s. Although he would ultimately find this style too rigid, he incorporated aspects of the technique into his later work. Pissarro diverged from the other Impressionists on subject matter as well. While his Impressionist collaborators frequently depicted scenes of urban leisure and contemporary life in their work of the 1870s and 1880s, Pissarro turned his attention to the rural working class. This interest in peasant labor stemmed from Pissarro’s leftist political ideals. The only Impressionist to include peasants as a staple in his avant-garde painting, Pissarro elevated the virtues of rural life, often idealizing the labor and struggles of French peasants. Toward the end of his career, however, a recurring eye infection prompted him to shift his focus to depictions of urban life in France’s capital and ports of industry. Finding it difficult to work outdoors, he painted the views from hotel room windows rented expressly for this purpose. After his death in 1903, Pissarro’s legacy lived on not only in the many artists he took on as students, but also in his children and grandchildren, many of whom followed in his footsteps and became artists.
Born in Charlotte Amalie, Danish West Indies (present-day U.S. Virgin Islands), 1830–died in Paris, France, 1903
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The sixth child in a working-class family, Pierre-Auguste Renoir moved from Limoges to Paris with his family at three years old. At 13, Renoir began an apprenticeship with a porcelain painter. Interested in pursuing a career as a fine art painter, however, he began copying 18th-century works in the Louvre Museum in 1860, and the following year he became a regular attendee of the informal art school in the studio of the Swiss painter Charles Gleyre. There, Renoir met Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley, and Claude Monet, who would become close friends and colleagues. Although he did receive formal training at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1862 to 1864, Renoir turned toward the styles and techniques of the older avant-garde painters Gustave Courbet and Camille Corot. These influences are evident in his work produced in the 1860s, which features an austere color palette and broad brushstrokes.
The Salon refused many of Renoir’s early paintings, although he experienced brief success there in 1868 with a painting of his mistress and favorite model, Lise Tréhot. After continued rejection, however, Renoir joined with Sisley, Monet, and others to organize the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. During this time, Renoir adopted a lighter palette and began using more delicate, loose brushstrokes in his depictions of the leisurely pursuits of modern Parisians. In comparison to the other artists who participated in the show, Renoir experienced far less negative criticism and went on to exhibit at the next two Impressionist exhibitions. He achieved some financial success painting portraits for affluent patrons, which allowed him the freedom to experiment stylistically after 1880. Against Renoir’s wishes, his work was included in one last Impressionist exhibition in 1882 when the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel submitted works that he owned.
Distancing himself from the Impressionists, Renoir drastically changed his style from this point on. After traveling to Italy in 1881 and 1882, he embraced a more linear style inspired by the works of Renaissance painters such as Raphael and by classical sculpture. After 1885 he returned to a looser technique while continuing to draw inspiration from historic Western traditions. After 1890 Renoir devoted himself almost entirely to painting sensuous female nudes and bathers. A steep decline in his health in the early 1900s prompted him to turn to sculpting, which he did with the help of an assistant, Richard Guino, until his death in 1919.
Born in Limoges, France, 1841–died in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, 1919
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Georges Seurat
Georges Seurat’s artistic training began in his teenage years when he received informal instruction from an uncle who was an amateur painter. In 1875 he took his first official drawing lessons at the local municipal art school. Seeking more conventional training, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1878 but found it unstimulating. While searching for inspiration outside of the Academic system, Seurat visited the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879, where he was particularly struck by the work of Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
By the early 1880s, Seurat had taken a keen interest in studying color theory. Between 1881 and 1883, he began to apply his careful research to his painting, which culminated in a monumental depiction of laborers relaxing along the banks of the Seine rendered with a unique Divisionist technique. Divisionism is the practice of separating color into individual strokes or dots of pigment according to color theory (the visual effects of color combinations). As one views a Divisionist work from afar, the carefully placed, discrete strokes of color blend together, producing a luminous image. This painting was rejected from the Salon because of its avant-garde style. This prompted him to found a new artist’s collective called the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1884 with a group of fellow artists that included Paul Signac and Odilon Redon. In the same year, the collective put on its first exhibition.
In the summer of 1884, Seurat began working on the painting A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (Art Institute of Chicago) but reworked it in the winter of 1885–86 in the technique he termed “chromo-luminarism,” now known as Pointillism. He finished the reworked painting in time to submit it to the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition in May 1886. This aesthetically radical painting not only established Seurat as the leader of a new avant-garde movement known as Neo-Impressionism but also aligned him with the fledgling group of Symbolist writers in Paris. Seurat’s jealous guarding of his newfound position led to disagreements with some of his artistic peers, including Camille Pissarro and Paul Signac, Seurat’s closest collaborator.
Due to Pointillism’s slow and laborious process, Seurat only completed three more monumental works after A Sunday on La Grande Jatte. These later works were criticized by his Symbolist peers as too “naturalistic.” The Circus (1890–91; Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which was exhibited at the Salon de Indépendants after Seurat’s untimely death in 1891 at the age of 31, received little attention. Although Seurat’s career ended without much fanfare, his legacy as the instigator of Neo-Impressionism and the impact of his innovative style, Pointillism, have endured.
Born in Paris, France, 1859–died in Paris, France, 1891
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Paul Signac
Paul Signac, who initially studied to be an architect, decided to pursue painting as a career after seeing an exhibition of Claude Monet’s work at the Parisian office of La Vie Moderne, an illustrated magazine, in 1880. When Signac visited the fifth Impressionist exhibition that same year, his enthusiastic copying of a work by Edgar Degas led to his removal from the premises by Paul Gauguin. Despite studying under more traditional Academic teachers, Signac’s earliest works, from 1882 and 1883, feature a distinctly Impressionist style and appear to have been particularly influenced by the works of Monet and Alfred Sisley.
In 1884 Signac banded together with several other artists, including his new acquaintance Georges Seurat, to form the Société des Artistes Indépendants, an artist’s collective geared toward mounting exhibitions. Although Signac was still producing work that adhered to an Impressionist style at the time he met Seurat, he was soon enticed by the latter’s application of Divisionism, the technique of separating color into strokes or dots of pigment to increase luminosity. Signac painted his first Divisionist pictures in the spring of 1886. The two artists began a collaborative relationship, each influencing the others' implementation of the technique. Although their strict adherence to scientific paint application was antithetical to the Impressionist focus on spontaneity, both Signac and Seurat were invited by Camille Pissarro to take part in the eighth and final Impressionist exhibition in 1886. Their work influenced artists such as Pissarro and Vincent van Gogh, whom Signac met and painted with in Paris.
After Seurat’s sudden death in 1891, Signac was involved in compiling an inventory of Seurat’s works. In the absence of his collaborator, Signac continued to popularize and modernize the Pointillist technique. His bold juxtaposition of color transformed into a softer, freer application later in his career. He codified his theories into text in 1899, when he wrote From Eugène Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, in which he lays out and defends the theories of Divisionism and Neo-Impressionism. Though he painted increasingly less and mostly worked in watercolor, Signac became the president of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in 1908 and was a guiding force of the group until his resignation a year before his death in 1934. His belief that pure color could stand alone as a thing of beauty would influence younger avant-garde artists, such as the Fauves.
Born in Paris, France, 1863–died in Paris, France, 1935
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Alfred Sisley
Although he inherited British citizenship from his father, Alfred Sisley lived in France for most of his life. From 1857 to 1859, Sisley’s parents sent him to London to be initiated into the business world. His parents’ encouragement proved fruitless when Sisley spent his time at art galleries instead of pursuing his career. After his return to Paris in 1860, he turned to painting full time, and within two years he began attending the Swiss painter Charles Gleyre’s studio, one of the most influential informal art schools in Paris. There, he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, and Frédéric Bazille. After Gleyre’s studio closed in 1863, the four artists continued working together, traveling to paint scenes of the Forest of Fontainebleau outside of Paris.
Sisley’s early work was influenced by Barbizon landscape painters such as Théodore Rousseau. Deeply committed to the importance of direct observation, he regularly painted en plein air (outdoors). In 1872 Sisley moved to Louveciennes in the suburbs of Paris, where he began experimenting more with light and color. He painted the fields, paths, and villages that surrounded his small community, with balanced compositions and subtle but luminous color combinations. In 1874 Sisley joined his friends in the organization of the first Impressionist exhibition, and he would go on to participate in five of the eight shows.
While Monet and Renoir began to focus more on the human form in the 1880s, Sisley remained committed to a careful examination of light in nature and adopted a more vivid palette. Painting landscapes almost exclusively, he placed far greater emphasis on the sky than the earth, attempting to capture the fleeting effects of changing light and atmosphere in series of canvases. Despite his efforts, Sisley never experienced financial success in his lifetime. Unable to sell his work, he was forced to rely on the generosity and support of his friends. Although he has often been overlooked by critics, his Impressionist colleagues acknowledged his significance and contributions to the movement. When asked by Henri Matisse in 1902 to name a quintessential Impressionist, Camille Pissarro replied “Alfred Sisley.”
Born in Paris, France, 1839–died in Moret-sur-Loing, France, 1899
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
Q&A with the Curator
Q&A with the Curator
Q&A with the Curator
Get to know the movement’s key players by clicking on the names below!
Lecture: That 1870s Show: The Impressionist Revolution
Thursday, February 8 at 7:00 PM | Horchow Auditorium
Step back in time and experience Impressionism as the provocative, subversive, and defiant production of a renegade group of contemporary artists. Join Dr. Nicole Myers, the DMA’s Chief Curatorial and Research Officer and curator of the exhibition, as she explores the Impressionist revolution that scandalized Paris and set the course for modern art in the 1870s and beyond.
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Through the Lens
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School Partnership: Session 6 – Sculptural Response to Impressionist Revolution
Middle school students are in for an artistic adventure as they dive into the world of Impressionism!
Family Workshop: Arranging Nature
Spring Break Family Fun
During these fun-filled days let your creativity blossom through art making, family tours, special community guests, and gallery activities, all inspired by works of art in the exhibition.
Wednesday, March 13, 2024-Friday, March 15, 2024, 11:00 AM-5:00 PM
Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Art Babies: Inside & Outside
Monday, March 11, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM
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Toddler Art: Dancing with Degas
April 12, 17, or 19, 2024 | 11:00AM–12:00PM
Toddler Art is for 2 and 3 year olds and a favorite grown-up. We’ll explore works of art in the galleries and then create our own project or engage in sensory play.
$10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Arturo’s Art & Me is for a 3–5 year old and a favorite grown-up. Adults and young children listen to a story, look at works of art, and play hands-on games in the Museum galleries before creating an original work of art in the studio. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Thursday, April 11 and Saturday, April 13, 2024 | 11:00AM–12:30PM
Arturo’s Art & Me: Through the Seasons
Join Dr. Kimberly Jones from the National Gallery as she honors the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist show with a pre-lecture interactive performance with Bombshell Dance Company. $10 Public; $5 DMA Member, registration required
Richard R. Brettell Lecture
Art Babies: Inside & Outside
Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Monday, April 15, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, and 12:00 PM
FOR MUSEUM HOURS AND GENERAL VISITOR INFO ›
Nicole R. Myers
Edgar Degas, Ballet Dancers on the Stage, 1883, Pastel on paper, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin B. Bartholow, 1986.277. Mary Cassatt, Sleepy Baby, c. 1910, Pastel on paper, Munger Fund, 1952.38.M
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Gustave Caillebotte, c. 1878.
Mary Cassatt, 1867.
Paul Cézanne, 1861.
Edgar Degas, c. 1865.
“Paul Gauguin Wearing a Breton Jacket,” 1891..Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel.
Berthe Morisot, 1875.
Claude Monet, 1858.
Camille Pissarro dressed in a llanero, 1852-1855.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1861.
Georges Seurat, 1888.
Paul Signac with his palette, c. 1883.
Alfred Sisley, 1882. Durand-Ruel Archives, Paris. Source: ArtNet. Public Domain.
See one of Cassatt's works in our collection ›
See one of Cezanne's works in our collection ›
See one of Degas’s works in our collection ›
See one of Gauguin’s works in our collection ›
See one of Morisot’s works in our collection ›
See one of Monet’s works in our collection ›
See one of Pissarro’s works in our collection ›
See one of Renoir’s works in our collection ›
See one of Seurat’s works in our collection ›
See one of Signac’s works in our collection ›
See one of Sisley’s works in our collection ›
See one of Caillebotte’s works in our collection ›
Free
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Emily Franklin & Natalie Dykstra will discuss the legacy of Isabella Steward Gardner. Event will include the option of a docent guided pre-event tour of The Impressionist Revolution
Arts & Letters Live presents Emily Franklin and Natalie Dykstra
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 | 7:30PM–9:00PM
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February 11, 2024
to November 3, 2024
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English Large Text Exhibition Labels - 1
Spanish Large Text Exhibition Labels - 1
This talk is open to the public and exhibition preview tickets may be bought at checkout. DMA Members are invited to reserve separate tickets to attend both the talk and the Members Only reception celebrating the opening of The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse. Become a DMA Member today to gain access to the celebration by visiting dma.org/support.
The talk will begin at 7:00 p.m. in the Horchow Auditorium, and the Members Only Opening Reception and exhibition viewing will be from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Separate reservations are required for both events.
Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 1:00-2:30 PM
Be inspired by artists who changed the art game! Follow the path forged by the Impressionists and practice their techniques in our March class. Explore the exhibition The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse, and then set up your own still life in the art room.
$10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt • Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas • Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet • Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro • Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat • Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
SOLD OUT
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 2:10-3:20 PM Off-Site at Jesus Moroles Expressive Vanguard
Spanish Large Text Exhibition Labels - 2
English Large Text Exhibition Labels - 2
The Seine at Chatou (detail), 1874. Pierre-August Renoir. Oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.62.
The Seine at Lavacourt (detail), 1880. Claude Monet. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, Munger Fund, 1938.4.M.
Blonde Braiding Her Hair, 1886. Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., bequest of Mrs. Eugene McDermott in honor of Gene Jones, 2019.67.24.McD.
Q & A with the Curator: The Winkel Mill, Pointillist Version, 1908. Piet Mondrian. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of the James H. and Lillian Clark Foundation, 1982.25.FA. Jockeys, 1888. Edgar Degas. Pastel and graphite on paper. Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., bequest of Mrs. Eugene McDermott, 2019.67.7.McD. Grassy Riverbank, 1881–1882. Georges Seurat. Oil on canvas. The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.68. The Path in the Garden (detail), 1886. Gustave Caillebotte. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, The Eugene and Margaret McDermott Art Fund, Inc., bequest of Mrs. Eugene McDermott, 2019.67.5.McD. Place du Théâtre Français: Fog Effect (detail), 1897. Camille Pissarro. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.50. Sleepy Baby, about 1910. Mary Cassatt. Pastel on paper. Dallas Museum of Art, Munger Fund, 1952.38.M.
Ballet Dancers on the Stage (detail), 1883. Edgar Degas. Pastel on paper. Dallas Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Franklin B. Bartholow, 1986.277.
Apple Harvest (detail), 1888. Camille Pissarro. Oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, Munger Fund 1955.17.M.
The Port of Nice, 1881–1882. Berthe Morisot. Oil on canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection, 1985.R.40.
Saturday, April 20, 2024 at 1:00–3:00 PM | Horchow Auditorium
Q&A with the Curator
Q&A with the Curator
If visitors to this exhibition take away one thing about the Impressionists, what would it be?
Today the works of the Impressionists are incredibly popular. Reproductions of their compositions—for example Monet’s water lilies or Degas’s dancers—are everywhere, from dorm room posters to the lids of chocolate boxes. This seemingly universal appreciation of Impressionism makes it easy to think this was always the case. But in the 1860s and 1870s, there was virtually no audience or collectors for Impressionist artwork, nor could you find it on the walls of museums.
It can be difficult for us to see these paintings as ugly, unfinished, and even offensive. Yet that’s exactly how critics and the public alike responded to the Impressionists’ production, which rejected the Western artistic tradition in just about every way possible. Some of the key aspects of their work that we take for granted, such as mundane middle-class subjects or sketch-like brushwork, were cutting-edge artistic innovations that subverted expectations for finished works deemed suitable for public consumption. Indeed, there was no venue for the exhibition or sale of this artwork in Paris at the time.
Despite how broadly we use the term nowadays, Impressionism did not originate as a style of artwork. Rather, the Impressionists emerged in 1874 as a collective of independent artists that were united by a shared vision of what modern art should be and the desire to publicly exhibit their work outside of France’s official, conservative art system. By framing these artists in this context, I hope to convey to our visitors a sense of the absolutely radical and challenging aspects of their individual approaches, to make strange or unfamiliar these beloved works in our collection, to deepen our appreciation of what at first glance may read simply as “pretty” pictures. Having established that foundation, visitors can then trace these rebel artists’ extraordinary legacy into the most daring modern movements that continue to resonate in the art produced today.
Q&A with the Curator
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
• Gustave Caillebotte • Mary Cassatt •
• Paul Cézanne • Edgar Degas •
• Paul Gauguin • Claude Monet •
• Berthe Morisot • Camille Pissarro •
• Pierre Auguste-Renoir • Georges Seurat •
• Paul Signac • Alfred Sisley
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Richard R. Brettell Lecture
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Saturday, April 20, 2024 at 1:00 PM–3:00PM
Horchow Auditorium
Join Dr. Kimberly Jones from the National Gallery as she honors the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist show with a pre-lecture interactive performance with Bombshell Dance Company.
Art in Thirty: Gallery Talk
Friday, April 19, 2024 | 12:00PM–1:30PM
Join artist and educator Lane Banks as he discusses Henri Matisse's Ivy in Flower (1953) and Still Life: Bouquet and Compotier (1924), both of which are featured in The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse. *Free; registration required
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Experience the Travis Takeover at the DMA ›
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COMING SOON
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School Partnership: Session 6 – Sculptural Response to Impressionist Revolution
Middle school students are in for an artistic adventure as they dive into the world of Impressionism!
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 2:10-3:20 PM Off-Site at Jesus Moroles Expressive Vanguard
Tickets
School Partnership: Session 6 – Sculptural Response to Impressionist Revolution
Middle school students are in for an artistic adventure as they dive into the world of Impressionism!
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 2:10-3:20 PM Off-Site at Jesus Moroles Expressive Vanguard
Tickets
School Partnership: Session 6 – Sculptural Response to Impressionist Revolution
Middle school students are in for an artistic adventure as they dive into the world of Impressionism!
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 2:10-3:20 PM Off-Site at Jesus Moroles Expressive Vanguard
Tickets
School Partnership: Session 6 – Sculptural Response to Impressionist Revolution
Middle school students are in for an artistic adventure as they dive into the world of Impressionism!
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 2:10-3:20 PM Off-Site at Jesus Moroles Expressive Vanguard
Join Dr. Kimberly Jones from the National Gallery as she honors the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist show with a pre-lecture interactive performance with Bombshell Dance Company. $10 Public; $5 DMA Member, registration required
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Saturday, April 20, 2024 at 1:00–3:00 PM | Horchow Auditorium
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Join artist and educator Lane Banks as he discusses Henri Matisse's Ivy in Flower (1953) and Still Life: Bouquet and Compotier (1924), both of which are featured in The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse. *Free; registration required
Friday, April 19, 2024 | 12:00PM–1:30PM
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Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Monday, April 15, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM
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Monday, May 13, 2024 | 10:00AM, 11:00AM, and 12:00PM
Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers.$10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Ruth Reichl will discuss The Paris Novel. Event will include an optional docent guided pre-event tour of The Impressionist Revolution.
Sunday, May 5, 2024 | 11:00AM–12:30PM
Arts & Letters Live presents Ruth Reichl
Enjoy a day of free thematic art-making activities, story times, performances, and gallery activities. Wee Wednesdays are designed for children ages five and under, but all ages are welcome to join the fun.
Wee Wednesdays: Garden Party
Wednesday, May 1, 2024 | 11:00AM–2:00PM
More Info
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Art Babies: Inside & Outside
Arturo’s Art & Me is for a 3–5 year old and a favorite grown-up. Adults and young children listen to a story, look at works of art, and play hands-on games in the Museum galleries before creating an original work of art in the studio.
$10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Arturo’s Art & Me: Through the Seasons
Tickets
Thursday, April 11 and Saturday April 13, 2024 at 11:00AM–12:30PM
Free
During these fun-filled days let your creativity blossom through art making, family tours, special community guests, and gallery activities, all inspired by works of art in the exhibition.
Spring Break Family Fun
Wednesday, March 13, 2024-Friday, March 15, 2024, 11:00 AM-5:00 PM
Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Art Babies: Inside & Outside
Monday, March 11, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM
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More Info
Saturday, March 9, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 1:00-2:30 PM
Be inspired by artists who changed the art game! Follow the path forged by the Impressionists and practice their techniques in our March class. Explore the exhibition The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse, and then set up your own still life in the art room.
$10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
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Middle school students are in for an artistic adventure as they dive into the world of Impressionism!
Tuesday, March 5, 2024 - Wednesday, March 6, 2024, 2:10-3:20 PM Off-Site at Jesus Moroles Expressive Vanguard
School Partnership: Session 6 – Sculptural Response to Impressionist Revolution
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Wee Wednesdays: Garden Party
Arts & Letters Live presents Ruth Reichl
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September
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Arts & Letters Live presents Sebastian Smee
Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee will discuss Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism
Event will include self-guided pre-event tour of The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse.
Tuesday, September 24, 2024
Free
During these fun-filled days let your creativity blossom through art making, family tours, special community guests, and gallery activities, all inspired by works of art in the exhibition.
Spring Break Family Fun
Wednesday, March 13, 2024-Friday, March 15, 2024, 11:00 AM-5:00 PM
Sold Out
Saturday, September 21, 2024 at 10:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m.
Art Workshop: Paint Like an Impressionist
Join us for an exclusive painting workshop for adults where you’ll create your own Monet-inspired masterpiece, guided by artist and Certified Educator for Golden Artist Colors Melanie Brannan. The workshop includes a private tour of The Impressionist Revolution from Monet to Matisse and a catered lunch.
Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Art Babies: Inside & Outside
Monday, March 11, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 12:00 PM
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Film Screening: 1874 Impressionism (French with English subtitles, 90 min)
The film was developed in co-production with ARTE France and the Musée d’Orsay to capture the birth and rise of Impressionism over the 12 years leading up to the 1874 exhibition.
Free, but registration is required
Saturday, September 14, 2pm, Horchow Auditorium
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Emily Franklin & Natalie Dykstra will discuss the legacy of Isabella Steward Gardner. Event will include the option of a docent guided pre-event tour of The Impressionist Revolution
Arts & Letters Live presents Emily Franklin and Natalie Dykstra
Wednesday, April 10, 2024 | 7:30PM–9:00PM
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Art Babies: Inside & Outside
Just for children 0-24 months old and their caregivers. Join us in the galleries for songs and story time, followed by playtime and an opportunity to mingle with other parents and caregivers. $10 Public; $7 DMA Member, registration required
Monday, April 15, 2024 at 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM and 12:00 PM
Sold Out
September
Events & Programs
The film was developed in co-production with ARTE France and the Musée d’Orsay to capture the birth and rise of Impressionism over the 12 years leading up to the 1874 exhibition.
Free, but registration is required
Film Screening: 1874 Impressionism (French with English subtitles, 90 min)
Saturday, September 14, 2pm, Horchow Auditorium
More info