About the Collection
Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales is on display at the Columbia Museum of Art from March 6– June 7 . This one of a kind collection is on view here in South Carolina for the first time in the United States.
National Museum Wales, known for having one of the finest Impressionist art collections in Europe, is sending to the U.S. highlights from its remarkable Davies Collection, an extraordinary group of 19th- and early 20th-century paintings that is renowned for its beauty and quality. These works, which helped shape the course of Western art, were assembled between 1908 and 1923 by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. The collection is exceptionally strong in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and includes masterpieces by, among others, Cézanne, Corot, van Gogh, Monet, Daumier, Manet, Millet, Pissarro, Renoir, Turner and Whistler. Turner to Cézanne features 53 stunning works of art, seen together in the United States for the first time. The exhibition will travel to only five venues and the Columbia Museum of Art is the opening venue. The Columbia presentation is made possible by the Blanchard Family.
Some highlights of the exhibition are Renoir’s famous La Parisienne, which was included in the first show of Impressionism in 1874, a Monet Water Lilies, and van Gogh’s panoramic Rain–Auvers, painted during the last week of the artist’s life.
Providing fresh insight into the story of European art from J.M.W. Turner to Paul Cézanne, this exhibition also celebrates the legacy of two pioneers of modern art. Among the most important patrons in Europe at a key moment in the history of painting, the sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies concentrated their collecting on the period of around 1850–1914, principally on French art, with a small number of English works. The extraordinary collection that they amassed and later bequeathed to National Museum Wales included the most important names in the Realist, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist movements.
Read more about the collection at the Columbia Museum of Art's website.
The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts and National Museum Wales.
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Exhibition Dates:
Columbia Museum of Art
Columbia, SC
March 6—June 7, 2009
Oklahoma City Museum of Art
Oklahoma City, OK
June 25—September 20, 2009
Everson Museum of Art
Syracuse, NY
October 8, 2009—January 3, 2010
Corcoran Gallery of Art
Washington, DC
January 30—April 25, 2010
Albuquerque Museum of Art and History
Albuquerque, NM
May 16—August 8, 2010
