While its primary focus is on Impressionism, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, and Their Times contains examples of French art created throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, featuring styles ranging from Romanticism to Cubism. Among the highlights are works by seminal figures, including Edgar Degas, Eugène Delacroix, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh. But the exhibition is more than an overview of art-historical achievement: it also offers a glimpse of the tastes and connoisseurship of one of the great American collecting couples of the twentieth century, Paul Mellon and his wife, Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon. Philanthropists as well as collectors, the Mellons gave gifts of art to such distinguished institutions as the National Gallery of Art, the Yale Center for British Art, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where Paul Mellon served as a trustee for four decades.
Organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Supported in part by our 2019 Frist Gala Patrons
Note: Docent-guided tours of this exhibition will include A Sporting Vision: The Paul Mellon Collection of British Sporting Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
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Exhibition gallery
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890). The Wheat Field behind St. Paul’s Hospital, St. Rémy, 1889. Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 x 12 3/4 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 83.26. © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Katherine Wetzel
The Mellon Story with Chief Curator, Mark Scala of the Frist Art Museum
Pierre Bonnard (French, 1867–1947). The Pont de Grenelle and the Eiffel Tower, ca. 1912. Oil on canvas, 21 1/2 x 27 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2006.44. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Katherine Wetzel
Kees van Dongen (Dutch, active in France, 1877–1968). Haystacks, ca. 1904–5. Oil on canvas, 19 5/8 x 25 1/2 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.204. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: David Stover
Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848–1894). A Man Docking His Skiff, 1878. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/2 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 83.13. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Katherine Wetzel
Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890). Daisies, Arles, 1888. Oil on canvas, 13 x 16 1/2 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.207. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Travis Fullerton
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919). Pensive, 1875. Oil on paper on canvas, 18 1/8 x 15 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 83.47. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Katherine Wetzel
Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). At the Milliner, ca. 1882–85. Oil on canvas, 24 1/4 x 29 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2001.27. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Travis Fullerton
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926). Field of Poppies, Giverny, 1885. Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 28 3/4 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 85.499. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Katherine Wetzel
Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917). Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, model executed ca. 1880 (cast in 1922). Bronze, cloth skirt with tutu and satin hair ribbon, 38 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 14 1/4 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, State Operating Fund and the Art Lovers’ Society, 45.22.1. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Travis Fullerton
Raoul Dufy (French, 1877–1953). The Artists’ Studio, Perpignan, 1942. Oil on canvas, 25 5/8 x 31 7/8 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 2014.205. © 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Travis Fullerton
Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883). On the Beach, Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1868. Oil on canvas, 12 3/4 x 26 in. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 85.498. Image © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Photo: Katherine Wetzel
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