☕️ Coffee 10:30 AM | Lecture 11:00 AM

🎟 Free & open to the public *This program has been organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is supported, in part, by the Paul Mellon Endowment and the Jean Stafford Camp Memorial Fund Dr. Sylvain Cordier

Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 

“The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art” Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, will present a curator’s introduction to The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art, on view at VMFA from November 14, 2026, through April 4, 2027.

Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, the exhibition explores the compelling story of Impressionism, from its emergence in 1874 to its legacy in the early twentieth century. It reveals the rebellious origins of the independent collective known today as the Impressionists and the revolutionary path they opened for modern art.

Breaking with tradition in what they painted, how they painted, and how they presented their work, artists such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Berthe Morisot redefined the meaning of avant-garde art. Their innovations in technique, subject matter, and exhibition practice established a foundation to which later post-Impressionist artists—including Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Piet Mondrian, and Henri Matisse—responded in powerful and varied ways.

Dr. Cordier will introduce the major themes that structure the exhibition and discuss the curatorial questions involved in adapting this presentation from the Dallas Museum of Art for audiences in Virginia. The lecture will consider how the exhibition’s selection, sequence, and interpretive framework illuminate Impressionism

Dr. Sylvain Cordier is the Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art. Born and raised in Paris, France, he received his PhD in art history from the Paris-Sorbonne University in 2009. Originally a specialist of eighteenth- century and nineteenth-century decorative arts, he has expanded research in the dialogue between decorative and visual arts, the relationship between artistic creation and discourses of power, and the art of portraiture in pre-contemporary Europe.

Before joining VMFA, Cordier held several positions in academia and museums  in Europe and North America. He began as a curatorial assistant at Musée Gustave Moreau and later assistant curator at the Castle of Versailles before becoming a lecturer at Sorbonne University. After completing his PhD, he was received as Fellow in the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2010-2011 he was granted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Getty Research Institute. Cordier joined the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts as curator of early decorative arts in 2013. In Montreal, he cocurated Fabulous Fabergé, the local venue of VMFA’s traveling exhibition of the Pratt collection of Fabergé jewelry, and an exhibition focused on Rodin’s studio that was received by VMFA in 2015. He was the organizing curator of the critically acclaimed international exhibition Napoleon: The Imperial Household, which was presented at VMFA in 2018.

Since he joined VMFA in November 2019, Dr. Cordier reinstalled the Mellon Collections of French Impressionism and British Sporting Art, curated the long-term loan presentation of the Saunders Collection of Old Masters, and worked on several temporary exhibition projects. He is curently preparing the presentation at VMFA of The Impressionist Revolution, from Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art, as well as a major international exhibition on the French jewelry designer Jean Schlumberger (1907-1987).