Milwaukee Art Museum Presents Camille Pissarro’s Impressionist Paintings

Tuesday, 15 May 2007 07:02

Milwaukee, WI - Pissarro: Creating the Impressionist Landscape is coming to the Milwaukee Art Museum June 9–September 9, 2007, and explores Camille Pissarro’s transformation from a traditional landscape painter to a daring pioneer of Impressionism.  This exhibition brings together more than forty of the artist’s most beautiful and innovative canvases from major museums and private collections around the world to focus on a pivotal decade of his career, 1864–74.  During this brief yet intense period, Pissarro laid the groundwork for an entire generation of painters including Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, and Monet.

Exhibition highlights include Pissarro’s large-scale paintings from the Salon exhibitions of the 1860s and a powerful selection of landscapes seen in the first Impressionist show of 1874.  Colorful scenes of the picturesque French countryside show the evolution of Pissarro’s painting technique, palette, and subject matter from a Barbizon-influenced style to a modern one.  Works from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée d’Orsay, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, among others, as well as seldom seen private collections, comprise the exhibition.

Artist. Teacher. Visionary.

Camille Pissarro was born on the island of St. Thomas in 1830 and at the age of twelve, was sent to Paris to attend boarding school. After traveling for a time in Venezuela, Pissarro returned to Paris to continue his study of art at various academic institutions.  He studied under a succession of masters, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and Charles-François Daubigny.  It was during this time that Pissarro’s style evolved and his signature themes developed.

Pissarro focused on local life: workers in the field, washerwomen, paths, and streams.  The subject matter was not nearly as radical as the approach. Pissarro felt that light was inseparable from the object it illuminated, so to capture the light at a precise moment, he worked from direct observation.  Pissarro executed this emotive style with bold strokes and delicate applications of color.  He studied closely the effects of light, climate, and season to create a style that was distinctly his own; yet, in turn, he set the course for the movement that would later become known as Impressionism.

Pissarro’s departure from the popular, more technically realistic approach to painting held him back from being wholly accepted into the Salon culture in Paris.  Rather than conform to the strict Salon aesthetic, Pissarro followed his vision, although unpopular, and pushed the boundaries of conventional painting technique.  He began to organize an independent exhibition for those who shared his vision.  Pissarro was at the center of the group that included artists such as Degas, Renoir, Cézanne, and Monet. All were to become masters under the tutelage of the artist and exhibited works at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874.  The exhibition was met with disdain and public outrage, which pushed the Impressionists further from the mainstream.  There were eight Impressionist exhibitions in total over the succeeding years; Pissarro was the only artist to exhibit in them all.  Finally, at the age of seventy-four, Pissarro and the Impressionist movement gained acceptance in the art world. 

TOUR AND CATALOGUE

Following the Milwaukee presentation, Pissarro: Creating the Impressionist Landscape travels to Memphis Brooks Museum of Art in Tennessee (October 7, 2007–January 6, 2008).  A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. This exhibition is organized by The Baltimore Museum of Art and curated by BMA Curator of European Painting and Sculpture Katherine Rothkopf. The Milwaukee presentation of the exhibition is coordinated by Laurie Winters, curator of earlier European art.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS

Presenting sponsors: Wisconsin Energy Corporation and M&I Foundation. Generous additional support provided by the Richard and Ethel Herzfeld Foundation, Friends of Art, Fox 6 Milwaukee, Einhorn Family Foundation, R.D. Peters Foundation, Ruth St. John and John Dunham West Foundation, and the Florence Gould Foundation.

MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM

The Milwaukee Art Museum includes the new Santiago Calatrava–designed Quadracci Pavilion, completed in October 2001 and named by Time magazine “Best Design of 2001.”  The Milwaukee Art Museum’s far-reaching holdings include more than 20,000 works spanning antiquity to the present day.  The Museum is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for Thursdays when the Museum stays open until 8 p.m. (supported by Greater Milwaukee Foundation). For more information, visit www.mam.org