Press Release - Musée des impressionnismes Giverny

Impressionism
on the Seine press release April 1st ‐ July 18 2010 Contact press : Catherine Dufayet 01 43 59 05 05 [email protected] Géraldine Raulot 02 32 51 92 48 [email protected] Impressionism
on the Seine
Curator: Marina Ferretti
For the first year of the Festival Normandie Impressionniste, the Musée des
Impressionnismes Giverny is presenting an exhibition gathering a selection of sixty
paintings painted along the Seine from French public collections such as the Musée
d’Orsay. These works tell the story of impressionism and post-impressionism, from Eugène
Boudin to Henri Matisse.
This essentially didactic exhibition brings together masterpieces by Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Gustave Caillebotte, and other
paintings by lesser-known artists who accompanied the birth and development of
impressionism such as Armand Guillaumin, Henri Rouart or Maximilien Luce.
The first room is dedicated to pre-impressionism (before 1874) with the valley of the Seine
from Le Havre to Paris as seen by Jean-Baptiste Corot, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Stanislas
Lépine, Eugène Boudin, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and, Pissarro.
The second room illustrates work and economic activities linked to the river. The important
ports (Le Havre, Rouen and Paris), shipments and packing are evoked.
The third room deals with the beginnings of leisure, a corollary to industrialization, with
representations of Sunday strolls, dance halls, picnics, bathing, boating and regattas. La
Grenouillère at Croissy, restaurants such as Fournaise at Chatou and La Sirène at Asnières
and, the Ile de la Grande Jatte were important places for impressionism.
Finally, the last room is dedicated to resorts and residencies of artists on the Seine. In 1881
Caillebotte purchases a property at Petit-Gennevilliers where he settles in 1887. Claude
Monet lives first in Argenteuil in 1871, moves to Vétheuil in 1878 and Poissy in 1881,
before choosing to settle in Giverny in 1883. In 1912, Pierre Bonnard becomes his
neighbor after his purchase of “Ma Roulotte” in Vernonnet, where he will live until 1938.
The exhibition ends with a selection of “Fauve” works: André Derain and Maurice de
Vlaminck painted the Seine in Chatou and in Bougival. From his studio on Quai St
Michel in Paris, Henri Matisse represented the river such as Albert Marquet and OthonFriez in Le Havre.