Grand Rapids Art Museum
Grand Rapids, MI
616-831-1000
http://www.gramonline.org/
American Impressionism from Great Lakes
Museums
Continuing through August 27, 2000
American Impressionists created some of the best-loved paintings
in the history of American Art. Inspired by their French predecessors, who
were producing works in this new style in the 1870s and 1880s, the American
artists who traveled abroad returned home with their eyes opened to the
possibilities of light and color. From the 1890s until the 1930s, American
painters in various regions of the country worked in an impressionist style
that captured the unique beauty of the outdoors and the seasons. Whether
intimate domestic scenes or views of the city and countryside, these paintings
evoke America in an age of gentility and innocence. (left: William
Merrit Chase, The Olive Grove, ca. 1910, oil on composition board,
Terra Foundation for the Arts)
Drawn
from the permanent collection of the Grand Rapids Art Museum and museums
in the Great Lakes region, this exhibition allows visitors to discover the
rich artistic heritage offered by collections in this area. The works on
view may be considered as a single collection of American art available
as a unique resource for those who live herein West Michigan. Summer is
an ideal time to visit the museums in easy driving distance and discover
the various collections in the region. (left: Frederick Carl Frieseke,
Garden Mirror, c. 1912, oil on canvas, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Gift
of Emily J. Clark)
Paintings by William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Frederick
Carl Frieseke, William Glackens, Robert Reid, and Mathias Alten are on view
from the permanent collections of the Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago,
The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University 
of Chicago, Brauer Museum of Art, Valparaiso University,
Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame, Muskegon Museum of Art, and the Grand Rapids
Art Museum. (right: Childe Hassam, On the Lakefront Promenade,
Columbian World Exposition, 1893, oil on canvas, The David and Alfred
Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago)
Read more about the Grand
Rapids Art Museum in Resource Library
Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited above please see America's Distinguished
Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 3/18/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
American Impressionists created some of the best-loved paintings
in the history of American Art. Inspired by their French predecessors, who
were producing works in this new style in the 1870s and 1880s, the American
artists who traveled abroad returned home with their eyes opened to the
possibilities of light and color. From the 1890s until the 1930s, American
painters in various regions of the country worked in an impressionist style
that captured the unique beauty of the outdoors and the seasons. Whether
intimate domestic scenes or views of the city and countryside, these paintings
evoke America in an age of gentility and innocence. (left: William
Merrit Chase, The Olive Grove, ca. 1910, oil on composition board,
Terra Foundation for the Arts)
