Mary Morton, PhD | Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

Mary Morton, PhD- Curator and Head, Department of French Paintings at the National Gallery of Art presents: 

Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment

On April 15, 1874, an exhibition organized by the “Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, etc.” opened in Paris at the studio of the photographer Nadar on the Boulevard  des Capucines. One of the exhibition reviewers coined the term by which the group would come to  be known: “impressionist.” Although it only lasted a month, the first impressionist exhibition  remains a key moment in the history of Western painting, taking on an almost mythical status with the passage of time.

Marking the 150th anniversary of the first impressionist exhibition, the National Gallery’s Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment takes a fresh look at this seminal exhibition. Bringing together some 130 paintings, the show both reconstructs and recontextualizes the impressionist exhibition within the broader social, political, historic and aesthetic currents of this crucial year.