From Febuary the 13th – July the 6th 2014
Opened for the first time to the public in 1934, the Musée Marmottan Monet will celebrate its 80th birthday in 2014. In less than a century, the museum has benefited from bequests and donations of an unparalleled scale making it the largest collection worldwide of the works by Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot. Without the generosity of private collectors and descendants of the artists, it would not have been possible to become the centre of Impressionism that it is today. Respectful of this heritage, the museum begins it’s birthday celebrations paying tribute to private collections.
The Musée Marmottan Monet will present from February 13 - July 6, 2014 an exhibition entitled : Impressionist Works from Private Collections. 100 Masterpieces, showing works only from private collections. The art historian Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts and Marianne Mathieu, deputy director of Musée Marmottan Monet are the curators for this special exhibition.
Fifty lenders joined with enthusiam for this project and have provided loans from France, the United States, Mexico, Switzerland, Great Britain and Italy. This exhibition offers a unique opportunity for the public to discover paintings which for the most part that have never been seen by the public eye. One hundred impressionist masterpieces will be exceptionally shown together. Eighty paintings and twenty graphic works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Eugène Boudin, Johan Barthold Jongkind, Edouard Manet, Frédéric Bazille, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Gustave Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, Paul Cezanne, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales and Auguste Rodin allow the viewer to trace the history of Impressionism through a collection of unpublished works.
The exhibition starts with the premicise of Impressionism. It continues into 1874 and the years 1880-1890 when the Impressionist group broke up, giving way to the creative genius of each of its members. Finally, the last part of the exhibition shows the works of masters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet, who in many respects go beyond Impressionism, opening a window onto modern art and bringing us to the end of the exhibition.
The exhibition is chronological, starting with the landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Johan Barthold Jongkind and Eugène Boudin, showing the latter’s ‘La Plage de Bénerville,’ in an unfamiliar format. A version of Edouard Manet’s Le Bar aux Folies Bergères and La Terrasse from Méric de Frédéric Bazille conclude the first part of the exhibt. Each impressionist is then represented through a dozen paintings spanning his or her’s entire career. Sur les planches de Trouville andhôtel des Roches Noires from Claude Monet (1870), Meule from Camille Pissarro (1873) and Le Jardin de Maubuisson by Paul Cézanne (c. 1874), are some shining examples of the section devoted to the 1870s. Le Tournant du Loing à Moret from Alfred Sisley (1886), Les Jeunes filles au bord de la mer by Auguste Renoir (vers 1890), the double portrait Pagans et le père de l’artiste by Edgar Degas (vers 1895) and Les Dahlias, le jardin du Petit-Gennevilliers by Gustave Caillebotte (1893) however, are typical of the work of the late nineteenth century. As well as these paintings, the exhibition reveals two exceptional sculptures, La Petite danseuse de 14 ans by Edgar Degas and Le Penseur, in terracotta by Auguste Rodin, representing a selection worthy of the greatest museums.
This exhibition both unique and compelling is a testament to the presence and enthusiasm still alive in the private collections of the Impressionist Masters.
