Birth of Impressionism at De Young Museum, San Francisco

Last Sunday, I visited De Young Museum's Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay exhibit.



The exhibit was very well curated and it was not designed with showcasing blockbusters only; rather, it went length to explain how Impressionism came into fruition. It was thoughtfully assembled and was deeply thought provoking. That said, it did not mean that the show didn't have enough lustre.

In deed, though far from incorporating every major work from Musée d’Orsay, it did boasted works by Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Degas, Cézanne and Coubert.

Notable works in this exhibition include:

• The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)
• Racehorses Before the Stands by Edgar Degas (1866–1868)
• Family Reunion by Frédéric Bazille (1867)
• The Magpie by Claude Monet (1868)
• The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872)
• The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873–1876)
• The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)
• The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)
• Red Roofs, Corner of the Village, Winter Effect by Camille Pissarro (1877)
• Saint-Lazare Station by Claude Monet (1877)
• Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet (1878)
• Snow at Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley (1878)
• L’Estaque by Paul Cézanne (1878–1879)
• Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (1878–1879)
• The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879)

I was lucky enough to have seen many of the works included in this exhibit in d'Orsay. Below are a sample of the pictures I took there two years ago. The show is deeply satisfying. Don't miss it. It's much cheaper than going to Paris.


The Fifer, Édouard Manet, 1866


Moonlight over the port of Boulogne, Édouard Manet, 1866


Arrangement in Gray & Black No. 1: Portrait of the Painter's Mother, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1871


Boy with a Cat, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1868


The Floor Scrapers, Gustave Caillebotte, 1875


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