Monet to Matisse
Now at Dixon Gallery and Gardens
Timeless French Masterworks remain on view through April 4
Featuring more than 50 paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by the most influential artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist movements, Monet to Matisse, is an exhibition of the finest works from the vaults of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens.
Monet to Matisse celebrates the beauty and variety of the Dixon collection through a range of subjects and treatments. Works on view by celebrated Impressionist painters include the light-filled paintings of Camille Corot, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Camille Pissarro; portraits and figure paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Eugene Isabey, and Georges Seurat; graceful images of the Parisian ballet by Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Jean-Louis Forain; avant-garde post-Impressionist landscapes by Henri Matisse and Paul Gauguin; and brilliantly modern floral still-life paintings completed by Georges Braque and Marc Chagall. The show also features works by important British and American artists such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir Henry Raeburn, John Singer Sargent, Will Henry Stevens, and others in the museum and in the residence galleries.
Through documentary materials from the museum's archives, the exhibition traces the fascinating movement of these exceptional paintings through the hands of artists, writers, international dealers, and private collections, and the negotiations that secured them for the Dixon. "Monet to Matisse reveals the many lives that works of art touch on their way from the artist's studios to private collections to the public trust," says Dixon director, Kevin Sharp. The show's organizer, Dixon assistant curator, Julie Pierotti, emphasizes, "Monet to Matisse demonstrates how the essential figures in our history worked to make a better Dixon and a better Memphis. The story of the Dixon can only be told properly here. And it is a story that everyone should hear-and see."
Monet to Matisse is made possible in part by Hyde Family Foundations, Dr. Rose M. Johnston, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch.
Set amid 17 acres of formal and informal gardens, the Dixon Gallery and Gardens is a former private estate featuring Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings, the Stout Collection of 18th century porcelain, and changing exhibitions.
Located at 4339 Park Ave., the Dixon is open Tues.-Fri., 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sun. 1 p.m.-5 p.m.
Call 901-761-5250 for information, or visit www.dixon.org.
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