The spotlight is shining on French modernism thanks to the exhibition ‘From MONET to MATISSE. French Moderns, 1850-1950’, which presents 59 works from the extraordinary European collection of the Brooklyn Museum, New York’s second largest art museum and one of the largest in the United States.
The exhibition chronicles one of the most fascinating centuries in art history, when artists moved away from the academic artistic tradition to focus on subjects from everyday life. It also celebrates France as the artistic centre of international modernism from the mid 19th to mid 20th century.
Paintings and sculptures by the leading artists of the time are exhibited: Pierre Bonnard, William Bouguereau, Gustave Caillebotte, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Fernand Léger , Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Gabriele Münter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Odilon Redon, Yves Tanguy, Édouard Vuillard, Auguste Rodin and many others, a total of 45 masters.
Their works represent the avant-garde movements that defined modern art from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. The exhibition includes examples of the key movements of the period – Realism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism and Surrealism – that emerged in and around Paris between 1850 and 1950 and quickly became part of the dominant Western canon.
