Telfair Academy — Photo courtesy of Attic Fire
Monet and other Paris-based artists introduced Impressionism to the French public in the 1870s. American artists took up Monet's modern approach to light and color in the 1880s, a movement which was then avidly promoted by American artists, collectors and art writers.
Its popularity continued for 40 years, making Impressionism one of the longest-lived and most enthralling artistic expressions in the history of American art.
Telfair Museum's Jepson Center for the Arts is showcasing Monet and American Impressionism art with the work of more than 20 US artists through Jan. 24, 2016. Four paintings by Claude Monet as well as some 50 paintings and 20 prints by many of the leading figures of American Impressionism are on display. Included are works by Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman and J. Alden Weir.
The paintings presented in the exhibition span the years between 1887 and 1920 and include landscapes, portraits, intimate depictions of women and children and images of modern life in US cities. Making its debut at the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida, this exhibit then traveled to the Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee, before making its way to Savannah for the first time ever.
Monet and American Impressionism is organized by the Harn Museum of Art in partnership with Telfair Museums and the Hunter Museum of American Art. A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibit and includes essays detailing the artistic, cultural and historical context of American Impressionism from interdisciplinary perspectives.
The Jepson Center is one of Telfair Museums' three unique art venues located in downtown Savannah. A 19th-century mansion, the contemporary Jepson Center and an English Regency-style 195-year-old home make up the artistic complex.
Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Historical Society until 1920, the museum opened in 1886 in the Telfair family’s renovated Regency-style mansion, known today as the Telfair Academy. This Academy – the oldest public art museum in the South – houses a collection of 19th- and 20th-century paintings, works on paper, decorative arts and sculptures from the museum's permanent collection.
The Jepson Center for the Arts is a modern art museum housing a permanent collection of paintings by renowned artists such as Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg. As the oldest public art museum in the South, Telfair Museums holds numerous major works from American Impressionists in its permanent collection, which will also be on display.
Admission to the Jepson Center is $20 per adult, and that ticket gets you into the other Telfair properites as well: Owens-Thomas House and Telfair Academy. With a deal like that, how could you pass up this historic opportunity?
