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.
“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.
