Overview

Members’ Preview: Wednesday, September 19, 2007, 5-7 PM

Public Opening: Thursday, September 20, 2007, 5-7 PM

The Susquehanna Art Museum is thrilled to present, Passport to Paris, a survey of French printmaking across a century of artistic evolution and revolution, from September 20 through December 30, 2007.

The 46 works featured in the exhibition embody a variety of illustrious prints made in the 19th century that rival the paintings of that period. Artists included in the exhibition include: Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Honore Daumier, Eugene Delacroix, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. Many of the masters presented in this exhibition are renowned for their accomplishments in sculpture and painting. Others have been rediscovered – gaining a level of recognition and respect that their work deserves.

Traditionally, printmaking was most often relegated to a supporting role as a method for the reproduction and inexpensive dissemination of artists’ painted imagery. In the nineteenth century, however, it experienced a renaissance as a bona fide and widely employed artistic medium. Indeed, the Industrial Revolution and the dramatically changing French political landscape initiated an artistic reaction that manifested itself in poignant ways. In printmaking this meant experimentation and the refinement of earlier techniques such as lithography, etching, and woodcut.

Artists found inspiration in the countryside, the peasantry, and the urban landscape. For example, in the gifted hands of the Barbizon artists, romanticized images of rural life experienced a rebirth. Indeed, the graphic qualities of printmaking allowed a unique articulation of their focus on light and detail. At the same time, images of urban life and architecture also emerged as compelling themes.

Passport to Paris highlights the technical, stylistic, and thematic evolutions that redefined artistic sentiment and intent during one of the most productive artistic periods in the history of western art.