Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay on display in San Francisco

[Auggie]

The de Young is the only museum in the world to present two consecutive special exhibitions from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

The first exhibition, Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, debuts at the de Young on May 22 and runs through September 6, 2010.

Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay presents nearly 100 magnificent works by the famous masters who called France their home during the mid- to late-19th century and from whose midst arose one of the most original and recognizable of all artistic styles, Impressionism.

The exhibition begins with paintings by the great academic artist Bouguereau and the arch-Realist Courbet, and includes American expatriate Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black, known to many as “Whistler’s Mother.” Manet, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley are showcased with works dating from the 1860s through 1880s, along with a selection of Degas’ paintings that depict images of the ballet, the racetrack, and life in the Belle Époque.

Notable works in this exhibition include:

The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)
Racehorses Before the Stands by Edgar Degas (1866–1868)
Family Reunion by Frédéric Bazille (1867)
The Magpie by Claude Monet (1868)
The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872)
The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873–1876)
The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)
The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)
Red Roofs, Corner of the Village, Winter Effect by Camille Pissarro (1877)
Saint-Lazare Station by Claude Monet (1877)
Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet (1878)
Snow at Louveciennes by Alfred Sisley (1878)
L’Estaque by Paul Cézanne (1878–1879)
Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (1878–1879)
The Birth of Venus by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1879)

MORE INFO: http://orsay.famsf.org/content/masterpieces-musée-dorsay-birth-impressionism