Collection: Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

On View through March 27, 2022

For the first time, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is lending some 100 of the most significant paintings and works on paper from its renowned Impressionist collection for an exhibition that opens at the MFAH, its only U.S. venue. Incomparable Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston has been curated exclusively for this presentation.

The extraordinary collection of French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work traces the evolution of the radical movement, from its roots in the novel, naturalistic landscapes of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles Francois Daubigny, and other painters of the Barbizon School; to the early “optical color” experimentations in plein-air landscape painting by Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley; to the frank depictions of modern urban life by Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The exhibition brings together paintings from the 19th and early 20th century, assembled in nine thematic groupings. Among the highlights is a breathtaking display of 16 canvases by Monet featuring his most beloved sites. Also included are Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s life-size Dance at Bougival, with its swirling evocation of modern café life; Monet’s luminous Grainstack (Snow Effect); and Degas’s empathic double portrait of his sister, Thérèse, and her husband, Edmondo Morbilli. An integral aspect of the exhibition is a fascinating selection of works on paper showcasing the artists’ working methods.