OPENING RECEPTION: 1ST THURSDAY, JULY 5, 2013, FROM 5 - 8PM
Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery presents THE SUMMER IMPRESSIONISTS, a remarkable survey of American painting from the 1870s through the 1940s by some of the giants of their day. This exhibition highlights the evolution of American painting as the influence of Impressionism moved across the country.
In the late 1880s, Hudson River School artists like Albert Bierstadt were celebrities, and the influence of James McNeill Whistler was seen in tonalist paintings by artists like George Inness. This is also the time when the rapid brushwork and bold colors found in European salons started showing up in work by artists such as Mary Cassatt, Kenyon Cox, Myron Barlow, and John Leslie Breck. As American artists traveled abroad to learn the grand tradition of painting, they discovered that their European peers had rejected the traditional, academic rules for creating art. These artists began painting en plein air with small daubs of paint in clearly visible brush strokes with the goal of capturing a fleeting instant of time.
Upon their return from Europe, artists like Thomas Anshutz, who became head of the Pennsylvania Academy in 1909, taught this new philosophy of painting to the next generation of budding American artists. Slowly, the Impressionist influence moved across the country, as artists began to explore the western United States. Though the initial reaction to this new school of painting was less than favorable, these works were eventually added to important public and private collections. Today Impressionism is arguably the most beloved style of painting the world over.
