March 26th to July 14th, 2024
National Gallery of Art, Washington
September 8, 2024 to January 20, 2025
What exactly happened in Paris in that spring of 1874, and what sense should we make today of an exhibition that has become legendary? “Paris 1874. The Impressionist Moment” seeks to trace the advent of an artistic movement that emerged in a rapidly changing world.
“Paris 1874” reviews the circumstances that led these 31 artists (only seven of whom are well-known across the world today) to join forces and exhibit their works together. The period in question had a post-war climate, following two conflicts: the Franco-German War of 1870, and then a violent civil war. In this context of crisis, artists began to rethink their art and explore new directions. A little “clan of rebels” painted scenes of modern life, and landscapes sketched in the open air, in pale hues and with the lightest of touches. As one observer noted, “What they seem above all to be aiming at is an impression”.
Auguste Renoir
The Theater Box, 1874
oil on canvas
framed: 106.6 x 91 x 12.3 cm (41 15/16 x 35 13/16 x 4 13/16 in.)
original canvas: 80 x 63.5 cm (31 1/2 x 25 in.)
The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Photo © The Courtauld
On April 15, 1874, an exhibition an exhibition by the “Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers, etc.” opened at the Parisian studio of the photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. It was a defiant response to the official, government-sponsored annual exhibition known as the Paris Salon. The first exhibition of these Société anonyme artists included works by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cézanne, later known as impressionists. This now-legendary event is often considered the birth of modernist painting and remains a key moment in the history of Western art.
Honoring the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist exhibition, Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment brings together some 130 paintings, works on paper, prints, sculptures, and photographs to explore the various ways that artists responded to a city recovering from the violence of war and enormous political and social upheaval.
What exactly happened in Paris in the spring of 1874, and what meaning can we attach to the emergence of this artistic movement? Works shown at the first impressionist exhibition will be put into perspective alongside paintings and sculptures displayed at the official 1874 Salon. This unprecedented juxtaposition will help us understand the visual shock that visitors experienced when first encountering the works of the impressionists.
The exhibition will also explore the circumstances that led more than 30 artists to defy the official system of the Salon, with its judges, prizes, and government approval, by showing their art independently. At the time, France was struggling to recover from its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the siege of Paris and the violence of civil war. Following these crises, artists were rethinking their art, discovering their voices, and exploring new directions.
Eager for autonomy and challenging an academic system that often rejected them, Monet, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, and their colleagues came together as a société anonyme coopérative, an “anonymous cooperative society.” They exhibited their work in the very heart of Paris, in a photographer’s studio. Scenes of modern life and plein-air landscapes were displayed alongside more conventional paintings, engravings, and sculptures. It represented a common desire to pursue art unconstrained by the established order.
That order will be evoked with a selection of paintings and sculptures from the official Salon, held in the massive Palais de l’Industrie. This annual event, the highlight of the season, featured meticulously crafted mythological, religious, and historical paintings that received government and academic approval. Comparisons between the first impressionist exhibition and the Salon will give us a fresh look at artistic divisions of the day.
Above all, Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment will invite visitors to consider what constituted an impressionist work. What made it so different and specific? These questions led Louis Leroy, one of the first exhibition’s critics, to coin the term “impressionist”—originally meant sarcastically—that came to describe an artistic movement that would reshape our understanding of modern art. A century and a half after its emergence, it is time to take stock of impressionism and reexamine its radicalism.
Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment will include works exhibited at Nadar’s studio as well as paintings and sculptures by established artists such as Jean-Léon Gérôme and Antonin Mercié, who were celebrated at the Salon that year. Modern Paris, with its newly built streets and boulevards, entertainment venues, and performances will also be evoked through works by Renoir, Degas, Monet, Eva Gonzalès, and Édouard Manet, shown either at the first impressionist exhibition or submitted to the Salon. Also included will be works by lesser-known impressionist and Salon artists, some of them recently rediscovered and shown for the first time in this context. Finally, the exhibition will feature Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant)—a seminal painting in the history of impressionism.
“This exhibition will closely reconstitute the very first impressionist exhibition,” noted Christophe Leribault, President of Orsay and Orangerie Museums, Paris. “It will invite visitors to immerse themselves in this decisive moment, a major rupture in the history of art, and help us understand its emergence and grasp its radicality.”
“Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment offers a unique opportunity to explore the origins of one of the most popular and well-known movements in Western art,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art. “We are pleased to partner with the Musée d’Orsay to share this fascinating story with our American audience.”
Exhibition Organization and Support
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Exhibition Tour
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, March 25–July 14, 2024
National Gallery of Art, Washington, September 8, 2024–January 19, 2025
Exhibition Curators
The exhibition is curated in Paris by Sylvie Patry, General Curator of Heritage/Galerie Mennour, Paris, and by Anne Robbins, Curator of Painting, Musée d'Orsay; and at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, by Mary Morton, curator and head of the department of French paintings, and by Kimberly Jones, curator of 19th-century French paintings.
Images
Camille Cabaillot-Lassalle
The Salon of 1874, 1874
oil on canvas
100 x 81.5 cm (39 3/8 x 32 1/16 in.)
framed: 124.5 x 105 cm (49 x 41 5/16 in.)
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, gift of Galerie Ary Jan and Segoura Fine Art, 2023
Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Sophie Crepy
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Zacharie Astruc
Woman Asleep in an Artist’s Studio, 1871
watercolor
56 x 42 cm (22 1/16 x 16 9/16 in.)
Collection Musée de l'Opera de Vichy
Photo: Musée de l'Opera de Vichy
Auguste Lançon
Dead in Line!, 1873
oil on canvas
overall: 160 x 210 cm (63 x 82 11/16 in.)
framed: 197 x 250 x 13.5 cm (77 9/16 x 98 7/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
Musée de la Princerie de Verdun (81.1.401), on loan to the Musée departemental de la Guerre de 1870 & de l'Annexion (DG2009.1.1), Gravelotte
Photo: © Departement de la Moselle, MdG1870&A, Rebourg
Jean-Leon Gerôme
L’Éminence Grise, 1873
oil on canvas
overall: 68.6 x 101 cm (27 x 39 3/4 in.)
framed: 111.1 x 142.9 x 12.1 cm (43 3/4 x 56 1/4 x 4 3/4 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Susan Cornelia Warren, 1903
Photograph © [date of publication] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Jules Breton
The Cliff, 1874
oil on canvas
overall: 163.8 x 252.7 cm (64 1/2 x 99 1/2 in.)
Eric Weider Collection
Henri Fantin-Latour
Still Life with Torso and Flowers, 1874
oil on canvas
116 x 90 cm (45 11/16 x 35 7/16 in.)
framed: 146 x 117 x 10 cm (57 1/2 x 46 1/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden
Photo: Gothenburg Museum of Art / Hossein Sehatlou
Édouard Manet
The Railway, 1873
oil on canvas
93.3 x 111.5 cm (36 3/4 x 43 7/8 in.)
framed: 113 x 132.7 x 5.4 cm (44 1/2 x 52 1/4 x 2 1/8 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Horace Havemeyer in memory of his mother, Louisine W. Havemeyer
Felix Bracquemond
The Divan (after Edouard Manet), 1867
etching
plate: 21.59 x 32.39 cm (8 1/2 x 12 3/4 in.)
sheet: 29.85 x 40.64 cm (11 3/4 x 16 in.)
framed: 40.64 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
Samuel Putnam Avery Collection, Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations
Berthe Morisot
The Cradle, 1872
oil on canvas
framed: 80 x 71 cm (31 1/2 x 27 15/16 in.)
unframed: 56 x 46.5 cm (22 1/16 x 18 5/16 in.)
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, purchased 1930
Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
Edgar Degas
At the Races in the Countryside, c. 1869
oil on canvas
overall: 36.5 x 55.9 cm (14 3/8 x 22 in.)
framed: 52.1 x 71.1 x 10.5 cm (20 1/2 x 28 x 4 1/8 in.)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1931 Purchase Fund
Photograph © [date of publication] Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Claude Monet
Impression, Sunrise, 1872
oil on canvas
framed: 75 x 91 cm (29 1/2 x 35 13/16 in.)
overall: 50 x 65 cm (19 11/16 x 25 9/16 in.)
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris, Gift of Eugène and Victorine Donop de Monchy, 1940
Photo: © Musée Marmottan Monet / Studio Christian Baraja SLB
Camille Pissarro
Hoarfrost, 1873
oil on canvas
framed: 89.5 x 117.5 cm (35 1/4 x 46 1/4 in.)
unframed: 65 x 93.2 cm (25 9/16 x 36 5/8 in.)
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, bequest of Enriqueta Alsop in the name of Dr. Eduardo Mollard, 1972
Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
- Auguste Renoir
The Dancer, 1874
oil on canvas
142.5 x 94.5 cm (56 1/8 x 37 3/16 in.)
framed: 164.1 x 116.2 cm (64 5/8 x 45 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Widener Collection
Paul Cezanne
House of the Hanged Man, Auvers-sur-Oise, c. 1873
oil on canvas
framed: 75.3 x 87 cm (29 5/8 x 34 1/4 in.)
unframed: 55.5 x 66.3 cm (21 7/8 x 26 1/8 in.)
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, bequest of Comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911
Photo: © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
