Recently I ran across an article in the French news discussing two art exhibitions that are currently showing in Washington, D.C. They are exhibitions of American artists who were strongly influenced by France at the beginning of the 20th century. If you are in the D.C. area, you can check them out. Here is my translation of the article (this will also be posted on the Beaux Voyages blog):
From Claude Monet to Marcel Duchamp, two expositions in Washington honor the influence of French and European painting, sources of inspiration for American Impressionism and later, of Modernism.
The American Art Museum features “An Impressionist Sensibility: The Halff Collection” which took inspiration from France at the end of the 19th century.
The Phillips Collection welcomes the treasures of “The Anonymous Society”, an experimental museum founded in the 1920’s by the artist Marcel Duchamp and the art patron Katherine Dreier to promote modern art in America.
Shown for the first time in its entirety, the Halff Collection features a collection of 25 masters of American Impressionism, carefully put together during the past 20 years by a couple of rich patrons from Texas who are descendants of entrepreneurs who originally came from Germany.
All the artists, from William Merritt Chase to Childe Hassam to John Singer Sargent, studied and painted in France to capture “this modern and radical mind-set, this joy of viewing and celebrating the act of painting” explained Elizabeth Broun, Museum Director. Continue reading article.
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