“I do not know of anything that has given me greater pleasure than such an appreciation of simple flowers in their vase breathing the air.” – Odilon Redon, 1901
“I do not know of anything that has given me greater pleasure than such an appreciation of simple flowers in their vase breathing the air.” – Odilon Redon, 1901
Fifteen years ago, members from several American and French museums gathered together with the idea of a cross-Atlantic exchange. From there, the organization FRAME (French Regional American Museum Exchange) was created. Today, there are twelve museums in America (and one in Canada) that are members of FRAME. This organization makes it possible for museums here to showcase French art and for French museums to showcase American art.
And, in keeping with FRAME’s mission, a new exhibition of French art will open to the public on Saturday March 21st at the Virginia Museum of Fine arts.
Van Gogh, Manet, and Matisse: The Art of the Flower, curated by Dr. Mitchell Merling, the VMFA’s Paul Mellon Curator and Head of European Art, and Dr. Heather MacDonald, Dallas Museum of Art’s Lillian will blow you away.
Considering this exhibition is all about flowers, it is absolutely perfect timing that it opens on the first day of spring.
“Spring arrives on Saturday and this show opens on Saturday. I don’t know how Mitchell and everybody else timed it so well but I congratulate them,” joked Alex Nyerges, VMFA Executive Director.
This is the first full exhibition here in the United States on the Art of Flower painting in frames. It is an Impressionist exhibition, starting in the late 18th century just before the French Revolution and ending in the early 20th century.
Van Gogh, Manet, and Matisse are not the only artists featured – there are over 30 well-known artists. Among those are Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Gaugin, Delacroix, Redon and Courbet.
This exhibition has a three-part itinerary, which started at the Dallas Museum of Art, is now here in Richmond at the VMFA, and lastly will show at the Denver Art Museum.
“The nearly 70 paintings of flowers from museums like the Metropolitan, the Musee D’Orsay and the Louvre (both in Paris) from museums across Europe, the United States and Canada have been gathered in a six year long project,” said Nyerges.
It was not easy to obtain these world-renowned works because extracting museum loans is difficult these days. Curators Mitchell Merling and Heather McDonald worked very hard over the last few years to make this possible.
“It takes great persuasive powers. Heather and Mitchell have that,” said Nyergez.
Mitchell joined the VMFA ten years ago with a background in 17th century Italian art theory with an initial interest in Paul Mellon’s sporting art collection and subjects of death. After becoming a member of the FRAME organization he grew adoration toward French art.
“I discovered this strange painting that wasn’t about dead people, dying people, or people getting killed,” said Merling. “It was about sunlight and flowers and modern life and people walking in the streets in the sunlight, I began to love it.”
As a museum curator, no matter what specialty, Merling said that they all have to do an Impressionist exhibition. Merling decided to focus his on Floral Still-Life. At a FRAME meeting, MacDonald jumped on the bandwagon offering six paintings from her collection and from there they went on a mission to create this exhibition.
They convinced several other FRAME members to lend some of their paintings (in part by going on a trip to the Louvre) presenting their exhibition idea and gradually gathered paintings together.
There are several parts to the exhibition starting in the late 18th century with early master Anne Vallayer-Coster, court painter to Marie Antoinette. This being an experimental era.
The second section is Lyon, in France where Napoleon set up a school to educate floral designers who worked in the textile industry. This collection features artists like Antoine Berjon.
The third part focuses on the Early Impressionist influences of Courbet, Delacroix and Renoir.
Then there is a whole room of paintings by Henri Fantin-Latour who dedicated his life to painting flowers.
The After-Impressionist era, the end of the 19th century focusing mostly on Van Gogh’s impact on this genre.
“I’ve got to say we have five Van Gogh’s on the wall downstairs in our museum,” said Merling. “You can see the whole evolution of Van Gogh on that one wall and it is completely mind blowing.”
In the last room are early 20th century traditional floral still-lifes by Redon, Bonnard, and Matisse.
In one section, ‘The Art of the Flower Sketching Gallery’ holds wall-cubbies full of sketch pads and colored pencils so visitors to the exhibit can sketch their own versions of paintings.
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This is a new installation that has never been done in any other exhibition at the VMFA.
Be the first in the United States to see a this one-of-a-kind exhibition of beautiful French floral paintings by the great masters of the late 18th to early 20th century.
‘The Art of the Flower’
March 21 –June 21, 2015
The exhibition is co-organized by VMFA and Dallas Museum of Art
There are 64 works in the exhibition
Tickets are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and groups
