Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France | Now through July 31, 2022
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts | 200 N Arthur Ashe Blvd | Richmond
www.VMFA.museum| (804) 340-1405
Tickets: $16 for adults, $12 for seniors 65+, and $10 for youth 7–17 and college students with ID.
The exhibition is free for VMFA members, children ages 6 and under, as well as Commonwealth of Virginia employees and preschool and K–12 teachers (public and private). The exhibition is also free to active-duty military personnel and their immediate families.
The whole family will enjoy Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). The exhibition follows a group of aspiring artists who, between 1855 and 1913, left the U.S. to train in France, then returned home to become some of the greatest influencers to shape American art. From the urban studios of Paris to the rural art colonies of Normandy and Brittany, they traveled in communion with their contemporaries, exchanging ideas, exploring new painting techniques, and adopting new styles and subject matter. The exhibition features more than 100 enchanting works by celebrated American artists including Cecilia Beaux, Frank Weston Benson, Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Robert Henri, Winslow Homer, Theodore Robinson, John Singer Sargent, Henry Ossawa Tanner and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France is also experiential. Visitors enter the exhibition through a dramatic gallery reminiscent of the historic “Salon,” the most important exhibition of juried works held annually in Paris. In another gallery, visitors are surrounded by ambient sounds of nature conveying the experience of “plein air” painting, or painting outdoors. Further in the exhibition, an educational space helps visitors travel back in time, via vintage moving pictures, and envision what America was like when the artists returned.
Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France is organized by the Denver Art Museum and curated for VMFA by Dr. Susan J. Rawles, Elizabeth Locke Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts. The national exhibition tour is sponsored by Bank of America.
Online Learning Resources
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/guide-to-impressionism/
Early Childhood (en plein air, subject matter)
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/backyard-process-art/
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/little-hands-create-shaving-cream-sky-print/
Watercolor techniques (adults)
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/the-basics/
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/mixing-layering/
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/experimentation/
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/plein-air-painting/
Watercolor techniques (teens)
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/watercolor-tips-for-teens-lifting-using-salt-art-activity-video/
https://vmfa.museum/learn/resources/watercolor-tips-for-teens-glaze-gradation-art-activity-video/
