Past Exhibition

The Impressionists at Argenteuil

A sun-dappled dirt road runs away from us, parallel to a shimmering body of water under a blue sky dotted with white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so some details are difficult to make out. The road moves back in space from the lower right corner of the canvas. It is lined with tall thin trees with narrow, dark green canopies to our right and with marshy grasses to our left. The road ends or curves in front of a row of terracotta-orange and gray buildings and smokestacks along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this composition. Two women and a child stand and sit in the shadows at the base of the trees to our right. Two sailboats drift on the glassy surface of the water. A row of celery-green trees on the horizon to our left and the sails of the boats reflect in the water. The artist signed the lower right corner, “Claude Monet.”
Claude Monet, Argenteuil, c. 1872, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.42

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    West Building, Main Floor Galleries 72 through 75, 77, 78, 79
A sun-dappled dirt road runs away from us, parallel to a shimmering body of water under a blue sky dotted with white clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes, so some details are difficult to make out. The road moves back in space from the lower right corner of the canvas. It is lined with tall thin trees with narrow, dark green canopies to our right and with marshy grasses to our left. The road ends or curves in front of a row of terracotta-orange and gray buildings and smokestacks along the horizon, which comes about a third of the way up this composition. Two women and a child stand and sit in the shadows at the base of the trees to our right. Two sailboats drift on the glassy surface of the water. A row of celery-green trees on the horizon to our left and the sails of the boats reflect in the water. The artist signed the lower right corner, “Claude Monet.”
Claude Monet, Argenteuil, c. 1872, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.42

Overview: 52 paintings depicting scenes in and near the Paris suburb of Argenteuil were included in this exhibition. Works by Eugène Boudin, Gustave Caillebotte, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley were created in the 1870s and 1880s.

An audio tour of the exhibition was narrated by director Earl A. Powell III.

Organization: The National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, organized the exhibition. Paul Hayes Tucker was the curator. Philip Conisbee, senior curator of European paintings, National Gallery of Art, coordinated the exhibition in Washington.

Sponsor: The exhibition was made possible by United Technologies Corporation. It was supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Attendance: 272,104

Catalog: The Impressionists at Argenteuil, by Paul Hayes Tucker. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2000.

Brochure: The Impressionists at Argenteuil, by Mari Griffith. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2000.

Other Venues:

  • Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, 09/09/2000–12/03/2000

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