If you go
What: “Monet and American Impressionism” When: Saturday, June 27-Sunday, Sept. 20. (Museum opens at noon Wednesdays and Sundays and at 10 a.m. all other days. Closing time is 5 p.m. most days, 8 p.m. on Thursdays.) Where: Hunter Museum of American Art, 10 Bluff View Admission: $15 adults, $7.50 children 3-17 Phone: 423-267-0968 Website: wwwhuntermuseum.org Note: The Hunter will close at 5 p.m. today, June 25, for a private sponsors reception for “Monet and American Impressionism.”
Also on view
Through July 12: “Eudora Welty and the Segregated South” Through fall: “Japonisme” and America”
The Impressionists scandalized the wealthy taste makers of Paris so badly, some art collectors tried to physically attack their paintings. Wild, romantic artists who spilled their emotions onto the canvas and broke the rigid rules of art school shocked polite society. But that was back in the 1870s.
Today, the French Impressionists’ paintings are loved for their exquisite, liberating beauty. Even museum haters will buy a calendar or Christmas cards or kitchen apron or coffee mug adorned with iconic Impressionist art. But it’s a good bet anyone who visits the Hunter Museum’s new exhibit of American Impressionists will find gorgeous art few Americans have seen before.
Called “Monet and American Impressionism,” the exhibit opens Saturday, June 27, for a 12-week run. Featured are some 50 paintings and 20 prints dated between 1880 and 1920 by many of the leading figures in American Impressionism, such as Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman and J. Alden Weir. Of course, Charles Monet, the French genius who mentored so many Americans artists, is also in the mix.
“American Impressionists aren’t as well known as the French,” says the Hunter’s chief curator, Nandini Makrandi. “Impressionism came to American shores in small bits gradually. Mary Cassatt (an American painter who studied under Claude Monet) would spend time in Paris then come to America and paint for awhile. When exhibits of American Impressionists appeared, Americans were already receptive to the art.”
Makrandi believes that the Americans loved the Impressionists’ spontaneity (“you can see it in the way they break up brushstrokes) and their ability to find passion in work – qualities the Impressionists and Americans took pride in possessing. She believes Chattanoogans will find the 25 artists whose work will be on display will resonate with them.
“Americans love the idea of individualism, and Impressionists are individualists,” she says.
For “Monet and American Impressionism,” the Hunter is collaborating with the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art of the University of Florida in Gainesville and the Telfair Museums in Savannah, Ga. The Harn’s curator of modern art, Dulce Romn, curated the exhibition.
General admission to the museum also will be higher for this show: $15 for adults and $7.50 children.
Contact Lynda Edwards at ledwards@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6391.