Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information
Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

Turner to Monet: Masterpieces from The Walters Art Museum on Show at the Blanton Museum

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin presents Turner to Monet: Masterpieces from The Walters Art Museum from October 2, 2010 – January 2, 2011. This selection of forty nineteenth-century paintings includes works from Impressionist artists Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas, as well as British and American masters J.M.W. Turner, Gilbert Stuart and Asher B. Durand, among others. Ned Rifkin, director of The Blanton states, “This special exhibition will offer our visitors a rare opportunity to experience one of the country’s finest collections of nineteenth-century painting. We are thrilled to be able to bring works of this caliber to Austin and could not have done so without remarkable support from the community, from Joe and Teresa Long, and from the exhibition’s Presenting Corporate Sponsor, Chase.”

Claude Monet Springtime, ca. 1872 Oil on canvas Courtesy The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Selected by former Walters curator Eik Kahng for their art historical significance and fine quality, these paintings provide examples of the various artistic schools and movements of nineteenth-century painting in Western Europe and the United States. Highlights include J.A.D. Ingres’ neoclassical rendering of Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864) and Eugène Delacroix’s Christ on the Sea of Galilee (1854), as well as Monet’s Springtime (1872) and Manet’s fascinating Café-Concert (1879). The dialogue between the academic and avant-garde is further explored in Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier’s 1814 (1862), a jewel-like portrait of Napoleon on horseback, and Mariano Fortuny’s astonishing satirical portrait of a clergyman – likely an inspiration for Francis Bacon’s pope paintings. While each work is deeply satisfying on its own, together they make an exhibition that captures well the historical breadth and depth of The Walters collection and of nineteenth-century painting.

Repartee: 19th-Century Prints and Drawings from
The Blanton Collection
August 14, 2010 – January 16, 2011

To provide further context, The Blanton has organized an exhibition of over 100 works on paper from its collection that examines a greater number of artists and ideas introduced in the presentation of paintings in Turner to Monet. The social and cultural frameworks of nineteenth-century art are revealed in this dialogue between the collections in Baltimore and Austin. Works by John Constable, William Blake, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, J.A.M Whistler, Paul Gauguin, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, to name only a few, show the richness and depth of this period.

Special Course on the History of American Collectors
Lead by Cheryl Snay, Associate Curator of European Art
Sundays October 17, 24, and 31, 2-4pm ($75 for members / $100 general public)
Don’t miss a special mini-course offered by Blanton curator Cheryl Snay. In three classes held over three consecutive weeks, Dr. Snay will examine the collecting practices of William and Henry Walters and their contemporaries including Henry Clay Frick, Henry Osbourne and Louisine Havemeyer, William Corcoran, and Isabella Stewart Gardner, philanthropists whose collections would later reside in some of the finest art institutions in the United States. Space is limited. Reserve your seat today!

Turner to Monet: Masterpieces from The Walters Art Museum is organized by the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

Chase is the Presenting Corporate Sponsor for the presentation of this exhibition at The Blanton.

Major support for the exhibition at The Blanton is provided through a generous challenge grant from Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long.

Support also is provided by Applied Materials, AT&T, Mr. and Mrs. Jack S. Blanton, Sr., Leslie and Jack Blanton, Jr., the Booth Heritage Foundation, Bruce Buckley and Mrs. Vincent Buckley, Sarah and Ernest Butler, Mary Ann and Larry Faulkner, the Elva J. Johnston Foundation, Audre and Bernard Rapoport, Samsung Austin Semiconductor, Inc., the William A. and Madeline W. Smith Foundation, Eliza and Stuart Stedman, Carolyn and John H. Young, and the many other donors who contributed to meet the Long Challenge.

Travel for the exhibition is provided by Continental Airlines. Official Airline of The Blanton

THE WALTERS COLLECTION

Assembled over a period of more than 140 years, The Walters Art Museum boasts one of the finest collections of nineteenth-century painting in the United States today. The collection was formed by William T. Walters (1819-1894) and his son Henry (1848-1931) and includes canonical works by both academic and avant-garde artists. While William focused his efforts on the Barbizon school of painting and academic masters such as Paul Delaroche and Ernest Meissonier, Henry sought to balance the collection by adding major works by earlier artists such as Eugène Delacroix and J.A.D. Ingres as well as by the Impressionists. Although strongly weighted in favor of French painting, this exhibition, like the Walters collection, also includes works by British, Spanish, and American artists.

THE BLANTON MUSEUM OF ART

The Blanton’s collection comprises over 17,000 works of art in a variety of mediums, with particular depth in Western European art from the fourteenth through twentieth centuries and modern and contemporary art of the Americas.

Located at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Congress Avenue, the museum is across the street from the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum and is adjacent to downtown Austin. The museum is open Tuesday – Friday from 10-5, Saturday 11-5, and Sunday from 1-5. Thursday is free admission day and the museum is open until 9 PM on the Third Thursday of each month. Admission is free to members, all current UT ID-holders and children under 12, $9 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for college students with ID, and $5 for youth (13-25). For information call (512) 471-7324 or visit www.blantonmuseum.org

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