RALEIGH, N.C. - On October 21, 2007, the North Carolina Museum of Art opens Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism, an exhibition of forty paintings, including many superb examples of mid- and late- nineteenth- century French and American landscape. Ranging in date from the 1850s to the early twentieth century, the exhibition offers a broad survey of landscape painting as practiced by such leading French artists as Claude Monet and Gustave Courbet and their most significant American followers including Frederick Childe Hassam and John Singer Sargent.

“The NCMA wanted to follow the successful 2006 Monet in Normandy exhibition with a show that is equally fascinating and beautiful,” said Museum Director Lawrence J. Wheeler. “Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism brings impressionism across the Atlantic by presenting paintings by both French and American artists who worked in similar ways during the 19th century. The exhibition provides North Carolinians with a true sense of how American artists fit into that part of history.”

In the mid-19^th century many American painters went to Paris. Seeking to improve their skills and find inspiration in Paris and its environs, they attended French art academies and frequented the painting locations made famous by predecessors. Some of the Americans had direct contact with leading French landscape painters, sharing landscape sites or seeking informal guidance from admired mentors.

The majority of the American paintings in the exhibition depict American locales, demonstrating the eagerness of these artists to retain their progressive aesthetics after returning home, and to update the American scene in vibrant, innovative canvases. This led to the appearance of American beaches, factories, and cityscapes distinguished by brilliant colors and lively, broken brushwork including Julian Alden Weir’s Willimatic Thread Factory (1893) and Willard Leroy Metcalf’s Early Spring Afternoon, Central Park (1911).

Among the earliest works in the exhibition are Charles-François Daubigny’s The River Seine at Mantes (1856), and Gustave Courbet’s Isolated Rock (1862), which reveal the impact of plein-air sketching practice on landscape art of the period.

Monet is represented in Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism by several works including The Doge’s Palace in Venice (1908), The Islets at Port-Villez (1897), and Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sunlight (1903). After selecting a subject, Monet positioned himself before it for hours over a series of days, substituting one canvas for another as dictated by changing lighting and atmospheric effects, and producing a series of works devoted to the same subject under different conditions.

Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism will be at the North Carolina Museum of Art October 21, 2007, through January 13, 2008. General admission is $15; students, seniors, and groups of 10 or more are $12. Children six and under are free.

 Landscapes from the Age of Impressionism has been organized by the Brooklyn Museum. In Raleigh the exhibition is possible, in part, by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources and the North Carolina Museum of Art Foundation, Inc.

The North Carolina Museum of Art’s permanent collection spans more than 5,000 years, from ancient Egypt to the present, making the institution one of the premier visual arts museums in the Southeast. The Museum uses its collection to provide educational, aesthetic, intellectual, and cultural experiences for the citizens of North Carolina and beyond. The Museum offers a series of changing national touring exhibitions, classes, lectures, family activities, films, and concerts. For more information about the exhibition or the N.C. Museum of Art, visit www.ncartmuseum.org or call (919) 839-NCMA.