Post-Impressionist Exhibition

Post-Impressionist Exhibition The Post-Impressionist Exhibition was a landmark 20th-century show that gathered works by leading painters and sculptors associated with the transition from Impressionism to more experimental approaches, influencing later movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, and Expressionism. The exhibition assembled pieces by figures active in France and beyond, highlighted major paintings, drawings, and prints, and stimulated debate among critics from publications like La Revue Blanche, Le Figaro, and The Studio. Curators and artists connected to institutions such as the Société des Artistes Indépendants, Salon des Indépendants, and galleries on the Rue Laffitte played central roles in organizing the display.

Background and Origins

Organizers drew on networks linking proponents of Impressionism and avant-garde circles around patrons like Paul Durand-Ruel, Ambroise Vollard, and collectors including John Quinn and Samuel Courtauld. The intellectual context involved critics and writers such as Édouard Vuillard, Octave Mirbeau, Roger Fry, Gustavo Doré, and Maurice Denis who debated aesthetics in venues like Salon d'Automne and Galerie Bernheim-Jeune. Influences traced to exhibitions featuring masters like Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley, and the catalogues of dealers such as Durand-Ruel and Galerie Durand-Ruel. The exhibition’s origins also connected to earlier shows at Grafton Galleries, Mackintosh’s Willow Tearooms, and curatorial experiments by Walter Sickert and Roger Fry.

Key Artists and Works

The roster included pivotal painters and sculptors: Paul Cézanne with still lifes and landscapes referencing Aix-en-Provence; Vincent van Gogh with canvases tied to Arles and Saint-Rémy-de-Provence; Paul Gauguin drawing on motifs from Pont-Aven and Tahiti; Georges Seurat representing pointillist technique linked to Asnières and Le Chahut; Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec showing posters from Moulin Rouge and cabaret scenes. Also featured were Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard of the Nabis circle, Henri Matisse in early Fauvist mode, Georges Braque with proto-Cubist studies, Odilon Redon with symbolist imagery, and sculptors like Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol. Lesser-known but significant contributors included Charles Angrand, Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross, Maximilien Luce, Georges Lemmen, Henri Rousseau, Gustave Moreau, Joaquín Sorolla, John Singer Sargent, James McNeill Whistler, Camille Claudel, Medardo Rosso, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Wassily Kandinsky, Émile Bernard, Lovis Corinth, Käthe Kollwitz, Maurice Utrillo, Kees van Dongen, PIerre-Auguste Renoir, Alphonse Mucha, André Derain, Georges Rouault, Chaïm Soutine, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Hector Guimard, Gustave Caillebotte, Henri Le Fauconnier, Armand Guillaumin, Albert Marquet, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, Léon Bakst, André Derain, Pierrot Lunaire, and Georges Michel.

Organization and Curation

Planning involved curators and dealers such as Roger Fry, Paul Durand-Ruel, Ambroise Vollard, Bernheim-Jeune, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, and critics from The Burlington Magazine and La Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Venue negotiations referenced galleries on Rue Laffitte, spaces like Grafton Galleries and Galerie Georges Petit, and municipal permissions from the Prefecture of Paris. Hanging schemes invoked models used at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne, while loans came from private collections including those of Sergei Shchukin, Ivan Morozov, Samuel Courtauld, Paul Mellon, and Gertrude Stein. Cataloguing practices followed standards set by museums such as the Musée d'Orsay, Tate Modern, National Gallery, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Reception and Criticism

Contemporary responses appeared in periodicals including Le Figaro, Le Gaulois, La Revue Blanche, The Studio, The Times, The New York Times, and Der Sturm, with reviews by figures like Roger Fry, Félix Fénéon, Jean Cassou, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Charles Morice. Supporters compared exhibits to historical milestones like the Salon des Refusés, while opponents cited conservative critics at the Académie Julian and voices aligned with Émile Zola-era debates. Political and aesthetic controversies intersected in salons frequented by collectors Samuel Courtauld, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso’s circle, and patrons linked to Russel Smith and Bendor Grosvenor, provoking letters and essays in international reviews from Berlinische Galerie commentators, Vienna Secession journals, and New York’s art critics affiliated with the Armory Show discourse.

Influence and Legacy

The exhibition shaped trajectories of Fauvism, Cubism, Expressionism, and Surrealism, influencing artists tied to Salon des Indépendants, Salon d'Automne, and later shows at the Armory Show and International Exhibition of Modern Art. Institutions that later recontextualized works included the Musée Picasso, Musée Rodin, Musée d'Orsay, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Louvre, and the Uffizi. Collectors and foundations such as The Courtauld Institute, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, J. Paul Getty Museum, Paul Mellon Centre, Barnes Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Kunsthaus Zürich, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, and Fondation Beyeler trace provenance to loans or acquisitions first shown in the exhibition. Its legacy persists in scholarship by historians at Columbia University, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of Oxford, Université Paris-Sorbonne, Harvard University, Yale University, and in exhibitions curated by directors from Tate Modern, MoMA, and Musée d'Orsay.

Category:Art exhibitions