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Current Exhibitions
The American Expatriates: Cassatt, Sargent, and Whistler |
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 December 5, 2009-April 5, 2010
Northeast Bedroom Gallery
In the mid-nineteenth century, young American artists felt the lure of the Old World. Most professional artists chose to study in Europe, where the art schools and studios had much more prestigious reputations than the newly emerging American academies. Some, like James McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, and John Singer Sargent, remained in Europe essentially for the rest of their lives.
Most of the scholarship on the expatriate phenomenon in American art focuses on the master/apprentice model, depicting eager young American artists learning at the knees of august European teachers. But for artists as talented as Whistler, Cassatt, and Sargent, the influence they had on their European counterparts was perhaps just as noteworthy as the lessons they learned. Whistler, for example, tangled with English critic John Ruskin on the very definition of art, and Cassatt's experiments with Japanese prints was a factor in the explosion of interest in Japanese art in France. Clearly, the Americans were not only students of the Europeans, but significant forces on them as well.
This focused exhibition includes one work from
the Reynolda House collection, one work on loan from Barbara B. Millhouse, and four prints by Whistler from the
collection of Salem College. |
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