FRIST CENTER FOR THE VISUAL ARTS OFFERS YEAR-LONG EXHIBITION OF
FRENCH MASTERWORKS FROM IMPORTANT PRIVATE COLLECTION

THE SPLENDID PALETTE: PAINTING IN FRANCE FROM MONET TO BONNARD
May 20, 2005 – April 30, 2006

NASHVILLE, TENN. (March 25, 2005) In an unprecedented year-long exhibition, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts will offer The Splendid Palette: Painting in France from Monet to Bonnard, a collection of 14 extraordinary paintings by some of the most important masters of late 19th- and early 20th-century painting, from May 20, 2005 – April 30, 2006. The works are from a significant private collection—the donor has requested to remain anonymous—and include important paintings by Impressionists Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Henri Fantin-Latour and Camille Pissarro, as well as major works by other seminal modern painters such as Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Odilon Redon and Maurice de Vlaminck.

The paintings in this collection represent a pivotal period in art history, spanning approximately 50 years, when European artists were pursuing a radical transformation that was to forever change the meaning and understanding of art. Avant-garde artists, particularly in France, translated their perceptions and observations of society and the natural world into a language of rich color and expressive form, which increasingly emphasized the artist’s vision and personal sensibility over the need to represent reality or depict the literary, classical or biblical themes that were then popular in academic art.

Works in the exhibition by Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro and Fantin-Latour exemplify the Impressionists' celebrated use of loosely applied strokes or dabs of paint that remind the viewers of the immediate touch of the brush and the artist's presence behind it. Employing colors whose brilliance often exceeded what is found in the actual French countryside, they intensified the experience of light, giving it an almost tangible presence.

A highlight of this group of paintings is Monet's Le Berge Fleurie, Argentuil, one of only four known paintings the artist produced in 1877 in Argentuil, where he lived for seven years. The work shows Monet's skill in painting water, which inspired the poet Stephane Mallarmé to write "Monet loves water, and it is his especial gift to portray its mobility and transparency.... I have never seen a boat poised more lightly on the water than in his pictures, or a veil more mobile and light than his moving atmosphere."

Later works by Bonnard, Vuillard and Redon reveal the highly personal directions that were taken in the 20th century after the use of color and form was more fully liberated by the artists

Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. These two important Post-Impressionists are represented in this exhibition by landscapes that are remarkable for the immediacy and vigor of paint application and an intense luminosity that pervades the canvas. Bonnard and other members of his generation continued to stretch this painterly vocabulary, creating brilliantly colored landscapes, still lifes, and portraits that celebrate the poetry of the everyday.

Presenting sponsor: HCA & the TriStar Family of Hospitals.


EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW WITH THE SPLENDID PALETTE:

Renaissance to Rococo: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art
May 20 – August 28, 2005
Ingram Gallery

Stylistic Connections: Renaissance to Rococo
May 20 – August 28, 2005
Education Gallery

Gregory Crewdson: Twilight
May 20 – August 28, 2005
Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery

Fragile Species: New Art Nashville
June 17 – September 25, 2005
Upper Level Galleries


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The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., is an art exhibition center dedicated to presenting the finest visual art from local, regional, U.S. and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions. Gallery admission to the Frist Center is free for visitors 18 and under and to Frist Center members. Frist Center admission for adults is $8.50, $7.50 for seniors and military, and $6.50 for college students with ID. Discounts are offered for groups of 10 or more with advance reservation by calling 615.744.3246. The Frist Center is open Monday through Saturday 10:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. and Sundays 1:00 until 5:00 p.m. The Frist Center is open extended hours Thursdays until 8:00 p.m. and Fridays until 9:00 p.m. The Frist Center website can be accessed at www.fristcenter.org.