Impressionism, a style of painting characterized by loose brushwork and vivid colors, was practiced widely among American artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISM TICKETS
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An emerging artistic style from Paris
Image:RobinsonTheodoreLowTideRiversideYachtClub.jpg|thumb
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Theodore Robinson,
Low Tide Riverside Yacht Club,
(1894), Collection of Margaret and Raymond Horowitz
Impressionism emerged as an artistic style in
France in the 1860s. Major exhibitions of French impressionist works in Boston and New York in the 1880s introduced the style to the American public. Some of the first American artists to paint in an impressionistic mode, such as
Theodore Robinson, did so in the late 1880s after visiting France and meeting with artists such as
Claude Monet. Others, such as
Childe Hassam, took notice of the increasing numbers of French impressionist works at American exhibitions.
Turn of the century trailblazers
From the 1890s through the 1910s, American impressionism flourished in
art colonies—loosely affiliated groups of artists who lived and worked together and shared a common aesthetic vision. Art colonies tended to form in small towns that provided affordable living, abundant scenery for painting, and relatively easy access to large cities where artists could sell their work. Some of the most important American impressionist artists gathered at
Cos Cob and
Old Lyme, Connecticut, both on
Long Island Sound;
New Hope, Pennsylvania, on the Delaware River; and
Brown County, Indiana. American impressionist artists also thrived in California at
Carmel and
Laguna Beach; in New York on eastern
Long Island at Shinnecock, largely due to the influence of
William Merritt Chase; and in Boston where
Edmund Charles Tarbell and
Frank Weston Benson became important practitioners of the impressionist style.
Jazz age artists' colonies fizzled
Some American art colonies remained vibrant centers of impressionist art into the 1920s. However, impressionism in America lost its cutting-edge status in 1913 when a historical exhibition of modern art took place at the 69th Regiment Armory building in New York City. The “
Armory Show”, as it came to be called, heralded a new painting style regarded as more in touch with the increasingly fast-paced and chaotic world, especially with the outbreak of
World War I. The
Great Depression and
World War II.
The rebirth of impressionism in America: The 1950s and beyond
In the 1950s, a quarter of a century after the death of Monet, major museums in America started having exhibitions of the original French Impressionists paintings, and in so doing Impressionism was reborn. The resurgence of interest in Impressionism continues to this day, and is especially evident in the continued popularity of
plein-air painting.
Notable American impressionists
Prominent
impressionist painters, from the United States include:
- J. Ottis Adams
- Lucy Bacon
- John Noble Barlow
- Charles W. Bartlett
- Marilyn Bendell
- Frank Weston Benson
- Johann Berthelsen
- John Elwood Bundy
- Dennis Miller Bunker
- Mary Cassatt
- William Merritt Chase
- Alson S. Clark
- Colin Campbell Cooper
- Joseph DeCamp
- Thomas Dewing
- Frank DuMond
- John Joseph Enneking
- Frederick Carl Frieseke
- John Gamble
- Daniel Garber
- Arthur Hill Gilbert
- Edmund Greacen
- Richard Gruelle
- Childe Hassam
- Wilson Irvine
- Albert Henry Krehbiel
- William Langson Lathrop
- Laura Muntz Lyall (Canadian)
- Willard Metcalf
- Robertson Kirtland Mygatt
- George Loftus Noyes
- Leonard Ochtman
- William McGregor Paxton
- Lilla Cabot Perry
- Edward Willis Redfield
- Robert Reid
- Theodore Robinson
- Guy Rose
- Edward Simmons
- Sueo Serisawa (California Impressionist)
- Jack Wilkinson Smith
- Otto Stark
- T. C. Steele
- Edmund Charles Tarbell
- John Henry Twachtman
- Edward Charles Volkert
- Marion Wachtel
- J. Alden Weir
Gallery
See also
- Impressionism
- Pennsylvania Impressionism
- Hoosier Group
References