Sullivan Goss - An American Gallery is pleased to announce its third annual exhibition of The Summer Impressionists. Just in time for leisurely summertime viewing, the exhibition will include a gorgeous collection of late 19 th and early 20 th century paintings by major American artists from both coasts who were inspired by the French movement.
In 1874, Claude Monet exhibited a painting in Paris titled Impression, Soleil Levant (Impression, Sunrise), which prompted the categorization of paintings as impressionistic, based on their being painted out of doors and catching a fleeting moment of time and light. Moments such as when a canoe suddenly floats into view, or when afternoon light dappled by a tree’s canopy dances in a summer breeze.
Impressionist painting, while present in France since the 1860s, was slow to catch on in America and didn’t reach the zenith of its popularity here until the first decade of the 20 th century. Even in France, the movement wasn’t widely known until the 1880s, limiting opportunities for American artists to see the “shocking” new paintings. Still, there were artists on this side of the Atlantic as well who were interested in new ideas. A majority of the paintings in this show were painted in the last few decades of the nineteenth century, at the dawn of American understanding of the movement and the beginning of the French fascination with it. As such, all of the artists in this exhibition received at least part of the training in France, either at the Academie Julien or under the tutelage of senior artists.
