Paintings from the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow, at the Speed Art Museum
LOUISVILLE, KY. – The Speed Art Museum is presenting a major exhibition, “: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland,” to February 2, with 64 paintings rarely seen outside Scotland. “” includes works from the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Modern periods by such masters as Monet, Renoir, Cassatt, Cézanne, van Gogh and Picasso. The show will be traveling to only six cities in the United States and Louisville is scheduled as the opening venue.
Organized thematically, it begins with a selection of canvases from the Barbizon School including Jean-Francois Millet’s (1814-1875) monumental treatment of peasant life, “Going to Work” (1850-51). It also includes several important works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875). The development of Impressionism is represented in landscapes by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and by Claude Monet (1840-1926), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) and Alfred Sisley (1839-1899). Two early landscapes by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) show how both artists, though aware of Impressionism, developed their own unique styles.
Van Gogh’s portrait of Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid, painted when the two men lived together briefly in Paris in the late 1880s, illustrates the role art dealers played in the formation of the collection at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Reid was one of the major figures responsible for bringing Nineteenth Century French art of distinction to his native Scotland.
Georges Seurat’s (1859-1891) “Boy Sitting on the Grass” (about 1882) and “The River Banks” (about 1883) are among the notable Post-Impressionist works. Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) “The Flower Seller” (1901) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) as well as superb Fauve paintings by André Derain (1880-1954), Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954) take the exhibition into the early Twentieth Century.
The museum, 2035 South Third Street, is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, 9 am to 5 pm; Thursday until 8 pm; Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm. For information, 502-634-2700 or visit www.speedmuseum.org.