: The Portland Museum of Art will present the exhibition "Monet to
Matisse, Homer to Hartley: American Masters and Their European
Muses," June 24-October 17.
The show explores the rich relationship between European and
American artists between the years of 1870 and 1950, an 80-year
period that broadly coincides with the rise of Modernist art,
starting with French Realism and Impressionism and continuing
through the advent of a truly international art culture.
Organized by the museum, the exhibit comprises approximately 80
paintings and works on paper by such artists as Paul Cézanne,
Edgar Degas, Thomas Eakins, Marsden Hartley, Winslow Homer,
Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and John Singer
Sargent.
From 1870 to 1950, countless American artists were influenced in
innumerable ways by European artists and their work. The earliest
works in the exhibition acknowledge the influence of the French
Barbizon School, as well as a realist style of painting taught at
the Royal Academy in Munich, both of which were adopted by
Americans traveling to Europe to study and by those who saw such
works exhibited in the United States. The legacy of French
Impressionism on American art was profound, varied and
long-lasting, and works by Monet and Renoir will be paired with
examples by Theodore Robinson, Childe Hassam and William
Glackens, among others, to allow for expanded discussion.
"Isles of Shoals," Frederick Childe Hassam, 1915. Oil on
canvas. Portland Museum of Art, Maine, bequest of Elizabeth B.
Noyce. Photo by Melville D. McLean.
Post-Impressionist works by Cézanne, Edgar Degas and Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec provide opportunities to consider these artists'
significant impact on the work of such American artists as Mary
Cassatt, Hartley, John Marin and Walt Kuhn. Still other Americans
working in the late Nineteenth Century - such as Sargent, Eakins
and Edwin Lord Weeks - chose to study with French Academics and
were influenced by their approach for at least part of their
careers.
"Monet to Matisse, Homer to Hartley" will be accompanied by a
fully illustrated catalog with essays by Richard Brettell,
professor at the University of Texas, Dallas; Donna Cassidy,
director of American and New England studies at the University of
Southern Maine; Anne Dawson, associate professor of art history
at Eastern Connecticut State University; Martica Sawin, critic,
curator and art historian; and Carrie Haslett, Joan Whitney
Payson curator at the Portland Museum of Art.
The museum, at Seven Congress Square, is open 10 am to 5 pm,
Tuesday-Sunday, and open till 9 pm on Friday. Admission is $8.
For information, 207-775-6148 or portlandmu seumofart.org.
