Van Gogh Museum Celebrates 150 Years of Impressionism with New Exhibition

Revolution

It is 15 April 1874. Several young artists open their exhibition on a Paris boulevard. By organising their own exhibitions, they are exempt from the strict admission rules of the annual official Salon exhibition, where the established order dictates what is on show. Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas and Alfred Sisley capture their personal impressions of changing moments on canvas, using loose brushstrokes and bright colours.

The public is utterly shocked, it is nothing short of a revolution. 150 years on, this moment is considered to be the birth of one of the world’s most influential art movements: Impressionism.

Theo and Vincent van Gogh

Vive l’impressionnisme! Masterpieces from Dutch Collections includes more than a hundred French Impressionist works from Dutch collections. The entire range of media is represented: from Monet’s iconic painted landscapes to Cézanne’s pioneering watercolours, and from colourful pastels by Morisot and Degas to emotionally charged sculptures by Rodin.

A central question addressed in the exhibition is how and when these French Impressionist works arrived in the Netherlands. To what extent was the Netherlands ready to embrace a modern, colourful art movement from Paris around the year 1900?

Dutch taste at the time was predominantly conservative and there was a preference for traditional, dark colours. Vive l’impressionnisme! shows how several visionaries, including art dealer Theo van Gogh, ensured that Impressionism found its way to the Netherlands, and how the country eventually saw the light. Vincent van Gogh himself also embraced Impressionism, but it was only after he moved to Paris in 1886, when he saw what the Impressionists were doing himself, that his art changed radically, and for good.

Unique collaboration with Dutch museums

Vive l’impressionnisme! Masterpieces from Dutch Collections is organised by the Van Gogh Museum and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, in close collaboration with the Kröller-Müller Museum, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Singer Laren, Teylers Museum, Museum de Fundatie, The Mesdag Collection and seven private collections.

Works by male and female Impressionists including Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Morisot, Cassatt, Sisley and Cézanne from Dutch collections are all on display.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

In addition to the focus on the highlights that have been collected in the Netherlands, the exhibition also reflects on missed opportunities to secure masterpieces for Dutch collections. The virtual installation Boulevard of Broken Dreams reveals Impressionist masterpieces that were once in the Netherlands, but subsequently ended up abroad.

The installation was designed by light artist Nick Verstand (1984), who has previously worked with major names including Björk and Iris van Herpen. A digital application in this gallery helps visitors to appreciate the dilemmas facing museum directors when making decisions about acquisitions.

Publication

The exhibition is accompanied by the catalogue 150 Years of Impressionism – The Netherlands Sees the Light, which will continue to be a reference book after the exhibition ends. This richly illustrated publication brings together information about the French Impressionist masterpieces in Dutch public collections (Collectie Nederland) for the first time, including paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures.

The publication reveals the story of how French Impressionism was received in the Netherlands: from the initial scepticism to its ultimate celebration. Like the exhibition, the catalogue was produced in close collaboration with thirteen contributing curators from various institutions.

Vive l’impressionnisme! Masterpieces from Dutch Collections is on display at the Van Gogh Museum from 11 October 2024 to 26 January 2025.