01/07/2019
'The Impressionist Exhibitions of 1874-1886, The World's First Art Fairs'
Aldis Browne's daily December online exhibit posts are now together at ImpressionistExhibitions.com
EPILOGUE - IMPRESSIONISM REACHES AMERICA
Mary Cassatt's brother, Alexander, was president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, America's largest and most powerful railway. Following his sister's guidance, he began to collect impressionist paintings in 1880. By the time the Amerian Art Association introduced impressionism with 300 paintings sent by Durand-Ruel for its1885 exhibition in New York, Alexander Cassatt's private collection numbered some thirty paintings. He lent seven to the exhibition. A scion of wealth and power, his imprimatur strongly endorsed the new movement even before it crossed the Atlantic.
American painters had long studied abroad, frequently in Paris. Thus, the impact of impressionism had rapidly become two-fold, both among young artists and the collecting public. Accordingly, it was hardly surprising that Durand-Ruel opened a gallery in New York in 1887.
Numerous American artists were strongly influenced by impressionism. Among masters of modern painting who today are considered iconic were (clockwise, top, below) William Merritt Chase, John Singer Sargent, and Childe Hassam. The relationship between their works and the paintings of Mary Cassatt, Claude Monet, Edouard Manet is further explored at ImpressionistExhibitions.com, just as the influence of Gustav Caillebotte's 'Paris Street, Rainy Day" upon Childe Hassam's 'Rainy Day, Boston' is made clear here.
William Merritt Chase, A Friendly Call, 1895, oil on canvas, 30.1 x 48.2 inches.Collection National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
John Singer Sargent. Morning Walk, 1888, oil on canvas, 26 3/8 x 19 3/4 inches, private collection, the Ormond family.(Richard Ormond was the grand-nephew of the artist.)
Childe Hassam Rainy Day, Boston, 1885, oil on canvas, 26.1 x 48.03 inches, collection Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Ohio
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877, 212.2 × 276.2 centimetres (83.5 × 108.7 in), Art Institute of Chicago
