de Young: Impressionism from Le Musée d’Orsay
Back in May, I wrote about five paintings stolen from the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, and an exhibition (art from Le Musée d’Orsay) at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco (and another, with background information about the period, at the Palace of the Legion of Honor (1) in Lincoln Park, San Francisco).
I have no update with regard to the five stolen paintings.
Today, my wife and I attended the first of two exhibitions at the de Young, “Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay,” which will run through September 6, 2010. The second exhibit from the Musée d’Orsay, which will start September 25, 2010 and run through January 18, 2011, is entitled Van Gogh, Gaugain, Cézanne, and Beyond: Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. Le Musee d’Orsay in Paris is undergoing renovations, and as the result, San Francisco is one of the few cities of the world that will see its art.
Our daughter was fortunate to have toured Le Musée d’Orsay, but I had never hoped to see its treasures. This year, they have come to San Francisco!
The de Young describes the first of the consecutive exhibits as follows:
Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay presents nearly 100 magnificent works by the famous masters who called France their home during the mid- to late-19th century and from whose midst arose one of the most original and recognizable of all artistic styles, Impressionism. The exhibition begins with paintings by the great academic artist Bouguereau and the arch-Realist Courbet, and includes American expatriate Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black, known to many as “Whistler’s Mother.” Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley are showcased with works dating from the 1860s through 1880s, along with a selection of Degas’ paintings that depict images of the ballet, the racetrack, and life in the Belle Époque.
Notable works in this exhibition include:
- The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)
- Racehorses Before the Stands by Edgar Degas (1866–1868)
- Family Reunion by Frédéric Bazille (1867)
- The Magpie by Claude Monet (1868)
- The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872)
- The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873–1876)
- The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)
- The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)
- Red Roofs, Corner of the Village, Winter Effect by Camille Pissarro (1877)
- Saint-Lazare Station by Claude Monet (1877)
- Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet (1878)
- Snow at Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley (1878)
- L’Estaque by Paul Cézanne (1878–1879)
- Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (1878–1879)
- The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879)
If you have the opportunity to visit San Francisco before the first exhibit ends, its viewing is a rare opportunity. I am still a little overwhelmed by the beauty, this evening.
-Bill at
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