Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens

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John Singer Sargent, Man Reading (Nicola d’Inverno), about 1905-1910, oil on canvas, Museum Purchase, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania, 1948.35.1.
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Richard Blossom Farley, Blue and Gold, 1912, oil on canvas, 39 1/16 x 36 x 2 inches, Museum Purchase, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania 1917.3.1.
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Arthur Watson Sparks, Quai St. Catherine, Martigue, about 1910-1919, oil on board, Museum Purchase, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.
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Edgar Degas, The Laundress Ironing (La Blanchisseuse Repassant), about 1882 - 1886, oil on canvas 27 1/2 x 27 3/4 x 3 inches, Gift of Miss Martha Elizabeth Dick Estate, Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania 1976.45.1

Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens

Now-Sunday, August 30

This extraordinary exhibition, drawn entirely from the rich collection of the Reading Public Museum, explores the path to Impressionism through the nineteenth century and the complex relationship between French Impressionism of the 1870s and 1880s and the American interpretation of the style in the decades that followed. More than seventy-five paintings and works on paper help tell the story of the new style of painting which developed at the end of the nineteenth century—one that emphasized light and atmospheric conditions, rapid or loose brushstrokes, and a focus on brightly colored scenes from everyday life.

Some of the artists featured in the exhibition include Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt, who exhibited in the official Impressionist exhibitions in Paris in the 1870s and 1880s. Among the earliest American artists to embrace the style were John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, John Henry Twachtman, Childe Hassam, and Frank W. Benson. A host of American artists who embraced the style by the turn of the century including Robert Lewis Reid, William Paxton, Chauncey Ryder, and Guy Wiggins, are highlighted in the exhibition.

Across the Atlantic: American Impressionism through the French Lens is organized by the Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pennsylvania.  Local support for this exhibition and accompanying educational programming has been provided by The McIntyre Foundation, UFG Insurance, and the Lil’ Drug Store Products, Inc. Corporate Donor-Advised Fund of the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.  Educational programming for Across the Atlantic has been supported in part by the Marvin Cone Art Club.  

Additional annual support has been provided by the Hotel-Motel Tax Fund, the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Program Grant Fund of the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation, members of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, and contributors to the Museum’s Annual Fund.