Frontiers of Impressionism: Paintings from the Worcester Art Museum

Claude Monet, Waterlillies, 1909, Worcester Art Museum purchase, 1910.26.

On the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, Frontiers of Impressionism traces the impact and influence of Impressionism in Europe and America. In the late 19th century, painters from around the world gathered in the flourishing metropolis of Paris. There, they studied the techniques and methods of the emerging world of Impressionism and brought them back to their home countries. The exhibition focuses on the innovation and spread of Impressionism, which overturned traditions of Western art, and its popularity in the United States.

The Worcester Art Museum, located in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts, has been actively collecting Impressionist artworks since its opening to the public in 1898. Selected from the Museum’s extensive collection of Impressionist art, the exhibition features works by French Impressionists such as Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, American Impressionists such as Childe Hassam abd the expatriate John Singer Sargent, and notable artists from Germany and Scandinavia. Most of the masterworks have never been shown in Japan.