Opening fall 2014

FORT WORTH, TX ---- In the fall of 2014, the Kimbell Art Museum is the only venue for a major loan of French Impressionist portraits from the legendary Musée d'Orsay. The Paris museum, known the world over for its extraordinary collection of works produced between 1848 and 1914, will send to Fort Worth approximately 70 masterworks, including works by Caillebotte, Cézanne, Degas, Manet, Monet, Renior and more. Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from the Musée d'Orsay opens next fall at the Kimbell Art Museum in the new light-filled galleries of the Renzo Piano Pavilion.

 

"The Kimbell Art Museum is proud to present this exhibition with the help of our friends at the Musée d'Orsay," said Eric M. Lee, director. "The exhibition brings to our region, for the first time, some of the greatest works by Degas, Renoir and Cézanne from the national collections of France. The personalities of Impressionism----the artists and their sitters alike----will come to life for our viewers through the extraordinary paintings and sculpture on view."

 

Edgar Degas, L'Absinthe, 1875--76, oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Photo: Patrice Schmidt, Musée d'Orsay

"We are delighted to be part of the inaugural year of the Kimbell's new Renzo Piano Pavilion and to partner with one of the world's greatest small museums," said Musée d'Orsay president and director Guy Cogeval. "The Kimbell and Orsay have enjoyed a long and happy relationship for decades. This exhibition will serve to continue that tradition."

Faces of Impressionism explores the character and development of the portrait in French painting and sculpture from the late 1850s until the first years of the 20th century. Major works by Impressionism's most esteemed artists will be on display, including Cézanne's Portrait of Gustave Geffroy and Woman with a Coffee Pot; Degas's Self-Portrait with Evariste de Valernes and L'Absinthe; and Renoir's Alphonsine Fournaise (At la Grenouillère) and Yvonne and Christine Lerolle at the Piano. Artists who worked alongside the Impressionists will also be featured with some of their best-known works. Manet's Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets and Stéphane Mallarmé will be shown with Fantin-Latour's renowned group portrait of Manet and his followers, A Studio in the Batignolles. Additionally, the artists working just after the Impressionists----some of whom participated in the Impressionist exhibitions----will take their place in the discussion; among the featured works will be self-portraits by Gauguin and Van Gogh, pointillist studies by Seurat and Signac, The Clown Cha-U-Kao by Toulouse-Lautrec and Denis's monumental group portrait, Homage to Cézanne. Curated by George T. M. Shackelford, the Kimbell's deputy director, with Xavier Rey, chief curator of paintings, Musée d'Orsay----co-authors of the 2011--12 exhibition Degas and the Nude----the exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by Shackelford, Rey and other leading experts in French Impressionist and post-Impressionist art.

"I am delighted to be working with my friend and colleague Xavier Rey on this fascinating project," remarked George T. M. Shackelford, Kimbell deputy director, "and to revisit, in a new light, some of the best-loved portraits in the history of French art."

Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from the Musée d'Orsay is organized by the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, and the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Promotional support is provided by American Airlines, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and NBC5.

Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay opened to the public on December 9, 1986, to show the great diversity of artistic creation in the Western world between 1848 and 1914. Sited opposite the Musée du Louvre on the banks of the Seine, in a landmark 1900 train station----the former Gare d'Orsay----it was formed to regroup the national collections of France in painting, sculpture, the graphic arts and decorative arts. Its holdings of painting and sculpture----the greatest repository of late 19th-century French art in the world----came together from three establishments: the Louvre, for the works of artists born after 1820 or coming to the fore during the Second Republic; the beloved Musée du Jeu de Paume, which since 1947 had been devoted to Impressionism and post-Impressionism; and from the National Museum of Modern Art, for works of artists born before 1870. Since its inauguration more than 25 years ago, the Musée d'Orsay has been home to the many of the most celebrated paintings of Courbet, Millet, Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. With an active program of temporary exhibitions, and with wide-ranging galleries housing some of the world's most familiar masterpieces, the museum welcomes more than 3.5 million visitors every year.

Kimbell Art Museum

The Kimbell Art Museum, owned and operated by the Kimbell Art Foundation, is internationally renowned for both its collections and for its architecture. The Kimbell's collections range in period from antiquity to the 20th century and include European masterpieces by artists such as Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Poussin, Velázquez, Monet, Picasso and Matisse; important collections of Egyptian and classical antiquities; and Asian, Mesoamerican and African art.

The Museum's building, designed by the American architect Louis I. Kahn, is widely regarded as one of the outstanding architectural achievements of the modern era. A second building, designed by world-renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, will open November 27, 2013, and will provide space for special exhibitions, allowing the Kahn building to showcase the permanent collection.