American artists going to study art abroad has a long and illustrious history, particularly with early travels to France because of its much-admired salon scene. In the exhibition Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France, on view at Denver Art Museum November 14 to March 13, a new dialogue about France’s stylistic impact on American art of that period will be explored. Spotlighting more than 100 paintings created between 1855 and 1913, the show reveals that more than the great impressionism was learned and idealized.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), The Mandolin Player, 1868. Oil on canvas, 36½ x 38¾ in. Private collection.
The show is curated by Timothy Standring, Denver Art Museum’s curator emeritus, who says, “Five or six years ago, I wanted to do an American exhibition and it occurred to me that we have a hidden chapter of American art history, which is the focus on France. The country offered the best institutionalized structure for American artists and they would bring back the great narrative of French art.”
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), The Young Sabot Maker, 1895. Oil on canvas, 473/8 x 353/8 in. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the George H. and Elizabeth O. Davis Fund and partial gift of an anonymous donor, 95-22. Photo: Jamison Miller.
Set up in seven thematic sections, visitors to the museum will have a Paris Salon-like experience; be able to get a glimpse of the rigorous academic instruction to painting; and explore galleries for three of most associated artists Mary Cassatt, James Abbot McNeil Whistler and John Singer Sargent. We also learn about the smaller art colonies in France that many artists, including John Henry Twachtman, Thedore Robinson, Childe Hassam, Williard Leroy Metcalf and Guy Rose, visited and worked in such as Giverny and Pont-Aven. Concluding the show are artists who exhibited in competitive Paris salons, such as William Merritt Chase, J. Alden Weir, Frank Benson and Thomas W. Dewing. The group called themselves The Ten and exhibited together, which helped them gain a following in the United States.
James Abbott McNeil Whistler (1834-1903), The Beach at Marseille, 1901. Oil on panel, 81/16 x 131/6 in. Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection, 1992.143. Photography © Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago.
John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), A Gust of Wind (Judith Gautier), ca. 1883-85. Oil on canvas, 24¾ x 15 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond: James W. and Frances Gibson McGlothlin Collection. Photo by Travis Fullerton. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
“The show starts where post-Civil War beings with Whistler and goes through Hopper. There are many people who didn’t even know these artists had spent time in France,” says Standring. “There are artists such as Henry Ossawa Tanner and many women artists studying there. It’s an exhibition that encompasses a number of important social themes in the history of art that are still prevalent today about gender and racial equality in terms of training for artists.”
Tanner, an African American artist, spent the rest of his life in France after moving there in 1891. He was accepted in French artistic circles and really became recognized on an international level. A salon-style painter, Tanner’s artwork had a narrative and theme as the undercurrent. Among the works in the show is beautifully painting work The Young Sabot Maker, 1895, which depicts a father and son who are clog makers.
Henry Mosler (1841-1920), Le Retour (The Return of the Prodigal Son), 1879. Oil on canvas, 46¾ x 39¾ in. Paris, musée d’Orsay, dépôt au musée departmental Breton, Quimper. © Breton Departmental Museum/SergeGoarin.
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), Autumn, Portrait of Lydia Cassatt, 1880. Oil on canvas, 36 5/8 x 25 5/8 in. Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. Photo: Agence Bulloz. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.
In the gallery dedicated to Cassatt, visitors will find nearly 20 works including one of her first to be exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1868 titled The Mandolin Player, while the John Singer Sargent showcase will have four oil studies that were produced prior to painting Fishing for Oysters at Cancale. A Gust of Wind (Judith Gautier) and Atlantic Storm show is more stylistic and painterly inclinations. Whistler’s different approaches to painting will be highlighted in his gallery and includes works such as The Beach of Marseille and The Coast of Brittany (Alone with the Tide).
As a whole, the exhibition “reflects that wonderful richness of complexity” that exists in American art and how it was shaped through these journeys abroad. Standring says, “We hope to have streamlined it, to make it presentable and manageable to our visitors to go through and say ‘wow.” And where they can see American art history and say it’s exciting and rich. Salon paintings were fundamentally story first and style second, and Americans wanted to perfect their style in order to tell their stories.”
Following the close of the exhibition at Denver Art Museum it will travel to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts from April 16 to July 31, 2022. —
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