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Past exhibitions - Millet to Matisse
Start Date : Wednesday 06 November 2002
End Date : Tuesday 26 April 2005
Millet to Matisse toured North America from November 2002 until the end of 2004. Then went to Fundación La Caixa in Mallorca from 21 January 2005 until April 2005.
In 1905, the British writer Osbert Sitwell wrote, 'the latter half of the French nineteenth century was one of the supreme moments of world-painting.
'Never was there such an outburst of exuberant fertility, never were there gifts of such immense variety.'
The collection of French paintings housed in Kelvingrove Art Gallery gives a fascinating and valuable overview of the major styles and the prevailing art in France from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century.
Millet to Matisse included works from the Impressionist, Post Impressionist and Modern periods, and included sixty-four of Kelvingrove Art Gallery's finest paintings.
The list of artists represented reflected the major innovators of the period:
- Delacroix
- Corot
- Courbet
- Manet
- Monet
- Cezanne
- Van Gogh
- Gauguin
- Picasso
- Matisse.
Organized chronologically, Millet to Matisse began with a selection of canvases from the Barbizon School, including Jean- Francois Millet's (1814-1875) Going to Work (1850-51).
It also included important works by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875).
The development of Impressionism was represented in landscapes by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), and Alfred Sisley (1839-1899).
Two landscapes by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) showed how both artists were aware of Impressionism, but developed their own unique styles.
Van Gogh's portrait of Glasgow art dealer Alexander Reid, illustrated the role art dealers played in the formation of the collection at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery.
Reid was one of the major figures responsible for bringing 19th-century French art to Scotland. Georges Seurat's (1859-1891) Boy Sitting on the Grass (about 1882) and The River Banks (about 1883) are among the notable Post-Impressionist works.
Pablo Picasso's (1881-1973) The Flower Seller (1901), and a group of works by Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), as well as Fauve paintings by André Derain (1880-1954), Raoul Dufy (1877-1953), and Henri Matisse (1869-1954), took the exhibition into the early 20th century.
Book
A fully illustrated book was produced to accompany the exhibition: Millet to Matisse: Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century French Painting from Kelvingrove Art Gallery, is lavishly illustrated, provides a short essay on each work along with full catalogue details, and is available at museum shops and all good bookshops – visit our Shop pages for further details.
Images
A selection of images of the paintings in the exhibition can be viewed by clicking on the slide show on the right hand side of this page. Images are best viewed at a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels.
For enquiries regarding copies of any images used on our website, please contact the Photo Library.
The exhibition was organised by Glasgow Museums and the American Federation of Arts.
Venue details:
The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
6 November 2002 – 2 February 2003
The Frick Art and Historical Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
26 February 2003 – 25 May 2003
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska
18 June 2003 – 14 September 2003
The Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico
8 October 2003 – 4 January 2004
Musée du Québec
28 January 2004 – 25 April 2004
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Michigan
19 May 2004 – 15 August 2004
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma
8 September 2004 – 5 December 2004
Fundación La Caixa, Palma de Mallorca
January 21 2005 - April 26 2005.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum
Argyle Street
Glasgow
G3 8AG
Phone 0141 276 9599
Text phone 0141 276 9500 or 0141 276 9511
Fax 0141 276 9540.
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum is located in picturesque Kelvin Park in the popular west end of the city.
Opening hours
Monday to Thursday and Saturday 10am to 5pm, Friday and Sunday 11am to 5pm.
By subway
Five minutes' walk from Kelvin Hall Subway station.
By rail
Fifteen minutes' walk from Partick rail station.
By bus
First Bus services 9, 16, 18, 42, 62 and 64 all stop outside Kelvingrove.
Facilities
Free guided tours; gallery shops; café; male and female toilets; wheelchair access; pay and display parking.
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