Paris 1874: the Impressionist Moment
Please join us on Tuesday, September 10, at 7PM EDT for the Virtual Salon “Paris 1874: the Impressionist Moment.”
The Virtual Salon is a series of online events co-sponsored by the Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art (AHNCA) and the Dahesh Museum of Art.
Commemorating the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist exhibition, Paris 1874: the Impressionist Moment is a critical reexamination of the momentous show at Nadar’s studio on the Boulevard des Capucines. What was actually in that exhibition, and how did it relate to what was shown almost simultaneously at the Salon at the Palais de l’Industrie? How did artists in both shows respond to “l’année terrible” as Victor Hugo called the year 1870–71, the Franco-Prussian War, the siege of Paris and the savage suppression of the Commune? Exhibition curators Kim Jones and Mary Morton join Tulane Associate Professor Michelle Foa in a discussion of how their installation at the NGA addresses these questions.
Mary Morton is curator and head of the French paintings department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. She received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in history, and her PhD from Brown University, concentrating on 19th and early 20th century European painting. Dr. Morton began her curatorial career in the European art department at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and then as associate curator of paintings at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Her exhibition projects prior to arriving at the NGA include Courbet and the Modern Landscape (2006), Oudry’s Painted Menagerie (2007), and The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme (2010). At the National Gallery, she organized the presentation of Gauguin: Maker of Myth (2011), a reinstallation of the Gallery’s renowned nineteenth century collection (2012); Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye (2015), Cézanne Portraits (2017–18), Corot Women (2018) True to Nature: Open-Air Painting in Europe, 1780–1870 (2020) and Paris 1874: the Impressionist Moment (2024).
Kimberly A. Jones is Curator of Nineteenth-Century French Paintings at the Department of French Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington. She received her PhD from the University of Maryland in 1996. A former museum fellow at the Musée national du château de Pau and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, she joined the curatorial staff of the National Gallery of Art in 1995. She has served as curator and catalogue author for a number of exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, including Degas at the Races (1998); Edouard Vuillard, which was organized with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d’Orsay/Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2003–2004); In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet, which was organized in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2008); From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection (2010–2011); Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, an exhibition that traveled to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the National Arts Center, Tokyo, and the Municipal Museum of Art, Kyoto (2011); Degas/Cassatt (2014); Frédéric Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism, which was organized with the Musée Fabre, Montpellier and the Musée d’Orsay, (2016–2017); Degas at the Opéra, organized with the Musée d’Orsay (2019–2020), and Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, organized with the Musée d’Orsay (2024–2025).
This event is free and open to the public but registration is required at https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEtdOCprzkjHd3fL7DyPlriAMQC79KKtq6r