Impressionists to be the stars of Houston's autumn art exhibits
By Ana Maria Alarcon
By Ana Maria Alarcon
Houston, Oct 21 (efe-epa).- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) has scheduled "An Impressionist Autumn" with two exhibits showing the importance of that artistic movement in the development of modern art.
Starting Monday and running through Jan. 12, 2020, the Houston museum will present "From Monet to Picasso: A Very Private Collection" and "Berthe Morisot: Impressionist Original," two exhibits that highlight the great impressionist and post-impressionist artists from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th.
In particular, the Morisot exposition pays tribute to that French painter, who despite being one of the founders of the impressionist movement and having displayed her work along with other contemporary independent artists, did not get the recognition that the others received.
The exhibit allows viewers to appreciate Morisot's extraordinary work and career which MFAH director Gary Tinterow said certainly equaled and on some occasions surpassed the talents of her more famous colleagues with her particular way of painting and capturing a moment in the life of that epoch as nobody had done before her.
About two dozen paintings from private and public institutional collections explore the universe of Morisot (1841-1895) and the "breadth and depth" of her artistic legacy, from landscapes to scenes from daily life featuring women and children.
The exposition shows how the artist, adhering to a custom of the era, experimented with light and color in interior spaces and in the open air in works such as "Interior" (1872), "On the Beach at Fecamp" (1874), and "Hide and Seek" (1873), where she portrays her sister Edma, one of her favorite models.
The curator of the exhibition, Helga Aurisch, said that this is a good time to see how "radical for her time" Morisot was as an artist, something that she said should be recognized.
Among the works included in the exhibit will be "Woman with a Fan" (1876) and "At the Ball" (1876), along with "Children at the Basin" (1886), "Julie Manet and her Greyhound" (1893), featuring her only daughter, and a number of portraits.
"From Monet to Picasso: A Very Private Collection," on the other hand, collects works by artists such as Claude Monet, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pisarro, Pierre-August Renoir, Vincent van Gogh, Mary Cassatt, Alfred Sisley, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Leger and Juan Gris, among others, to provide the viewer with an idea of the evolution of impressionism into modern art.
The more than 50 pieces come from the impressionist collection of a private couple who want to remain anonymous and, although some have been loaned to other international expositions, this is the first time that they will all be exhibited together.
Tinterow said that the MFAH is very happy to be the first and only institution to exhibit this collection in its entirety, above all within the context of Berthe Morisot.
Ann Dumas, the curator of the exposition, told EFE that the order of exhibition of the pieces enables one to get a sense of the history of the movement from its start through its key artists.
Included among the artworks in this exhibit are Monet's "Valley of the Creuse, Afternoon Sunlight", one of Gauguin's Martinique scenes depicting a mango tree, Matisse's "Lemons against the Fleur-de-Lys" and two pieces by Spanish cubist Juan Gris: "Guitar" and "Jacket."
Also on display will be three fascinating works by Picasso: "Seated Woman in Turkish Costume" (1955), "The Artist's Wife" (1920) and "Woman Seated on a Chair" (1941).