Nature as Muse: Impressionist Landscapes from the Frederic C. Hamilton Collection and the Denver Art Museum is part of the exhibition Passport to Paris.
Focusing on landscape paintings, this exhibition features about 36 artworks from the private collection of Frederic C. Hamilton and the DAM’s own holdings. This is the first time that the masterworks from Hamilton’s private collection will be on view to the public.
In the beginning of the nineteenth century, artists took their easels and paints and worked outside, freed from the constraints of studio space and light. Utilizing loose brushstrokes and a soft color palette, the impressionists told the story of the French countryside through their canvases. The DAM is producing an illustrated catalog for the exhibition.
The DAM announced January 13 that Denver-based philanthropist Frederic C. Hamilton, the museum’s Chairman Emeritus, bequeathed 22 Impressionist masterworks from his private collection to the museum—the largest gift ever given to the museum. All 22 artworks are on view in Nature as Muse.
The gift includes a painting by
Vincent van Gogh, Edge of a Wheat Field with Poppies,
the first Van Gogh artwork to enter the museum’s collection;
four works by the impressionist master Claude Monet including
Path in the Wheat Fields at the Pourville, 1882, and
The Houses in the Snow, Norway,
that illustrate a range of output during the peak of Monet’s career;
three paintings by Eugène Boudin, the first by the artist to enter the museum’s collection, including
Scene at the Beach in Trouville, 1881;
along with paintings by Paul Cézanne, another first for the museum’s collection, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley, as well as those of their American contemporaries William Merritt Chase and Childe Hassam.
More images from the show:
Paul Cézanne, A Painter at Work, about 1874-75.
Gustave Caillebotte, Boats Moored at Argenteuil, 1887.
Camille Pissarro, Spring at Éragny, 1900.
Pierre Auguste Renoir, Banks of the Seine, about 1882. Oil on canvas; 16-7/8 x 21-5/8 in
Alfred Sisley, Route de Veneaux à Moret – Jour de Printemps, 1886. Oil on canvas; 24 x 28-11/16 in.
Claude Monet, Fishing Boats, 1883. Oil on canvas; 25-3/4 x 36-1/2 in.
