Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

A pale turquoise footbridge arching over a pond lined with tall grasses and filled with petal-pink and butter-yellow waterlilies spans this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with touches of vibrant color. In the top third of the composition, the shallowly arched bridge nearly touches the top edge of the canvas, and it extends off each side. The shadows on the bridge are painted with eggplant purple. Bands of waterlilies gently zigzag into the distance on the surface of the water. The spring and emerald-green grasses growing along the banks fill the space around and over the pond, and they blend into a screen of trees beyond that enclose the scene. The green of the grasses and trees is reflected in the surface of the water, as is the underside of the bridge. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet 99.”

The Japanese Footbridge

Claude Monet

1899

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1992.9.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M85

Shown from the lap up, an older woman with pale, slightly sagging skin and frosty gray hair sits facing us in this loosely painted vertical portrait. Her body is angled very slightly to our right, and she rests one elbow across the back of the chair in which she sits. She has a round face with large, dark blue eyes, and she smiles. Her gray hair is pulled back under a black hat, which is topped with pale pink flowers. She wears a black coat over a high-necked, hunter-green garment and nickel-gray gloves. The chair is painted loosely with a red and green floral pattern against a white background, and the space behind the woman is parchment white.

Portrait of a Lady

Mary Cassatt

c. 1887

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.7

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M86

Two women with pale, peachy skin sit next to a table holding a silver tray and royal-blue tea cups and saucers in this colored, vertical etching and aquatint. Faint black lines outline the women, their features, clothing, and objects in the room, and each area is filled in a flat color. The women face each other and take up most of the composition. Both have oval faces, rounded noses, pale pink lips, and their hair is pulled up and back. The woman to our right has brown hair and leans forward as she holds up a blue plate with her right hand, closer to us. The other hand rests on the arm of her tawny-brown chair. Her dress has a petal pink bodice and long skirt with fog-white long sleeves and white fabric covering her chest and tucked into the low, rounded neckline. The other woman wears a blue cap over black hair. The hat has a celery-green feather and is tied in a bow under the chin. She wears a hip-length, charcoal-gray cloak over a pale, sage-green dress. She looks down at the plate and holds what might be a cookie or biscuit with one hand and a cup and a dish-like saucer with the other. Her lips are downturned and her head pulled slightly back to create a double chin. She sits upright in another brown chair. In the lower right corner of the sheet, the round gray table is barely bigger than the round gray tray it holds. On it are two more cups and saucers and a silver jug, presumably holding milk. What might be another cup and saucer set or the teapot is cut off by the right edge of the paper. The rims of the cups and saucers are painted gold. A very pale, mint-green screen with openings across the top stands to the left behind the second woman, and a window is behind the first. Spiky fronds of a houseplant angle up toward the sunlight and a coral-pink curtain is pulled to the left side. Squiggles and flowers printed in rust red suggest a pattern on white curtains covering the window and the pink curtain to the left. The wall behind the screen is straw yellow. The artist signed and inscribed the sheet under the lower right corner, “Imprimée par l'artiste et M. Leroy, Mary Cassatt (25 épreuves).” A tiny dark blue stamp with a short, wide C overlaid on a capital letter M is inked along the bottom edge of the image.

Afternoon Tea Party

Mary Cassatt

1890-1891

Color drypoint, softground etching, and aquatint with touches of gold metallic paint on laid paper Accession ID 1946.21.77

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M87

The image shows two women depicted in a monochromatic etching style. One woman is standing and one is seated. The standing woman is shown from head to toe, slightly angled towards the seated woman, and resting one hand on the back of a chair. She has her hair styled in a bun or short crop, with her facial features appearing soft and somewhat indistinct due to shading. She wears a long dress that falls to the floor. The seated woman is shown from the waist up, turned towards the standing woman. Her hands are possibly resting in her lap or on a table. Her hair is styled up, and her facial features are also undefined due to shading. The seated woman wears clothing with long sleeves. The setting appears to be indoors, with textured walls or drapery in the background, possibly curtains. Light seems to be coming from behind the standing woman.

The Visitor

Mary Cassatt

c. 1880

Softground etching, aquatint, and drypoint on laid paper Accession ID 1946.21.94

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M88

A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor.

Place Vintimille

Edouard Vuillard

1911

Five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas Accession ID 1998.47.1-5

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M80

This painting displays a man standing upright, with his back against a tree. His hands are behind his back, and his face is turned to the right. He has pale skin, and his face is a mix of pale pink and light blue. He has short, reddish-brown hair, and he is nude except for a thin light blue cloth around his hips. He is pierced in several placed by thin arrows. The tree behind him is light gray, dotted with small, sparse red leaves. The ground below him is filled with colorful patterns, including green, red, orange, and blue tones against dark reddish-brown. There is a large patch of white on the left side. Behind the tree, the light blue sky is covered in thin, light gray clouds.

Saint Sebastian

Odilon Redon

1910/1912

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.57

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M80

Clouds hunker over a water-logged street that separates us from the end of a row of buildings in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted, especially in the sky and water. The lowest level of the building across from us is apricot orange. The second story is pale peach, and dormered windows cut into the gray and then brown rooflines above. The words “AS’ NICOLAS” are painted in gray near the top of the second level, and more letters on the level below are illegible. The roofline drops down a level where it meets the structure next to it, along the left edge of the canvas. Two women in long skirts stand at a darkened, open doorway near the front corner of the structure. A sign on the side of the building hangs from a horizontal arm over three men in and near a shallow boat, which is being propelled by a man who stands in the stern with a long stick. The street is so wet that it first appears to be a canal or river. It is only when we notice dashes of mauve, pale pink, and gray to our left that we realize the cobblestone road is flooded. A band of buildings with tan walls and black or red roofs spans the right two-thirds of the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up this composition. A grove of cinnamon-brown trees and some open structures could be a submerged park in the near distance. Two poles and some spindly trees to our right are reflected in the water. Dark forms around these areas could be more people. Pale blue and very pale pink whip together in the sky, suggesting churning clouds veiling the blue sky. The artist signed and dated the work in the lower left corner, “Sisley 72.”

Flood at Port-Marly

Alfred Sisley

1872

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1985.64.38

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M82

A woman stands on a sun-dappled path, which runs past a bank of blooming flowers and back to a cottage in this vertical painting. Close to us, the bush fills the lower right quadrant of the composition, where coral-pink and golden yellow dahlia blossoms flare like fireworks from among deep, spruce-green foliage. Sunlight from our left casts long violet-purple and steel-blue shadows across the white path, which runs parallel to the left edge of the canvas alongside a strip of trimmed lawn. In the near distance, the woman looks down at something in her hands at her chest so the brim of her hat angles down. She wears a pale blue jacket or blouse and a long, azure-blue skirt. A small black dog with wiry fur stands near the woman and looks at us. A greenhouse with a rounded, mint-green roof sits lengthwise on our right. Several windows are tipped open on the bottom half of the structure. Hedges of white, laurel-green, and peacock-blue flowers and bushes grow between the woman and the greenhouse. The house at the end of the path has a terracotta-orange roof, pale peach stucco walls, and dark orange shutters. Dense canopies of trees nestle each side of the house, and above, puffs of white clouds float against a watery, turquoise-blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in green in the lower left, “G. Caillebotte, 1893.”

Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers

Gustave Caillebotte

1893

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2016.48.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M85

Shown from the waist up, a young girl wearing a slate-gray dress and straw hat stands with her hands clasped in front of her in this vertical portrait painting. The girl has light, peachy skin, and her cheeks are lightly flushed. Her body faces us but she tips her head slightly to her right, our left, and looks off into the distance with dark brown eyes. Her faint eyebrows drawn together, and her cherry-red, full lips slightly turn down at the corners. She has a button nose and a rounded chin line. She has dark blond, straight, shoulder-length hair under a wide, flat-brimmed straw hat. The hat is wrapped around the crown with a checkered white and black bow. Her shoulders slope down as she holds one wrist with the other hand down in front of her. She wears a jumper over a shirt with short white sleeves. At first glance the jumper appears pale gray but closer inspection reveals strokes of pale lilac, ivory white, and cobalt blue. The girl’s features and clothing are painted with loose, visible brushstrokes, and the background behind her is painted with vertical strokes of tan blended with faint green. Short dabs of brighter gold and butter yellow give the impression of sunshine on the brim of the hat and in the girl’s hair. The artist signed the work with loose letters in the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”

Child in a Straw Hat

Mary Cassatt

c. 1886

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1983.1.17

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M86

A young boy with pale skin, wearing a burgundy-red suit and floppy hat, stands facing and looking at us with a gray terrier dog at his side in this vertical portrait painting. The boy has large, slate-blue eyes, rounded smooth cheeks, a small nose, and his pink bow lips are closed. His thick blond hair falls in waves across his forehead and down to his shoulders. His body is angled slightly to our right and he holds a riding crop with both hands in front of his body. The sheen on his burgundy-red jacket, and knee-length pants suggests they are velvet. A wide, lace collar comes to points on his chest. Lace cuffs peek out at his wrists, and the lower hem of his pants, around his knees, is edged with wide lace. A broad, slightly brighter ruby-red sash wraps around his waist and hangs by his left hip, on our right. His calves are covered in stockings of the same brighter red. His black shoes seem to be tied with a ribbon, but this area is loosely painted. His right hand, to our left, might brush the head of the dog sitting next to the boy’s leg. The dog has shiny, charcoal-gray fur and a black nose, ears, and eyes. The dog sits angled and looking off to our right. They are on a brick-red carpet with dashes of black that suggest a pattern, and an olive-green drape hangs behind them. The portrait is loosely painted throughout, but the brushstrokes are especially visible in the rug, background, and dog. The painting is inscribed near the lower right corner: “Eddy from Aunt Mary.”

Eddy Cassatt (Edward Buchanan Cassatt)

Mary Cassatt

1875

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2015.41.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M86

In the Omnibus

Mary Cassatt

1890-1891

Drypoint with graphite on wove paper Accession ID 1946.21.93

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M87

This is a painting of a dim street with several people carrying sacks. The people wear long skirts and aprons in dark colors, and their large sacks are filled with white cloth. The people are bent over under the weight of the sacks. They walk across a cobblestone street in front of a building with a lit interior and blue wallpaper. On the right side of the painting is another street with more buildings and a carriage where people appear to pass up their sacks to a person on top.

The Laundresses

Théophile Alexandre Steinlen

1899

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1954.4.4

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M80

The Japanese Footbridge

The Japanese Footbridge

Portrait of a Lady

Portrait of a Lady

Afternoon Tea Party

Afternoon Tea Party

The Visitor

The Visitor

Place Vintimille

Place Vintimille

Saint Sebastian

Saint Sebastian

Flood at Port-Marly

Flood at Port-Marly

Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers

Dahlias, Garden at Petit Gennevilliers

Child in a Straw Hat

Child in a Straw Hat

Eddy Cassatt (Edward Buchanan Cassatt)

Eddy Cassatt (Edward Buchanan Cassatt)

In the Omnibus

In the Omnibus

The Laundresses

The Laundresses

West Building

East Building

Sculpture Garden