In Paris, it's 72 and cloudy

Paying work continues to, ahem, intrude into my 24/7 blogging regimen...but I had to post about this morning's press preview for the "Americans in Paris, 1860-1900" show at the MFA. This is another in a line of unambiguously successful big shows at the MFA since Bill Koch took his boats and went home to Cape Cod. There are some merely pretty pictures here, but there's also stunner after stunner by Cassatt, Homer, Sargent etc., including a handful of masterpieces like Sargent's "Portrait of Madame X" (left). I managed to get some alone time with Whistler's Mother, and a long look at Sargent's recently restored "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" - flanked here by the two huge Chinese vases that appear in the picture.

I tend to focus my privileged gallery time on those moments of deep connection rather than on the scholarship; I'm happiest when the note-scribbling crowd  moves on, leaving me alone with just the art and a suspicious guard or two. But this is an exhibit that does offer something to learn. It's based on a Henry James quote about how the American art of the day was mostly found in Paris - but if found elsewhere, you could still find plenty of Paris in it.  Curator Erica Hirshler explained it all well, after torturing the sweltered attendees with the Paris weather report above. (And the mini-chocolate croissants were wonderful.)

The show will move on to the Met after its Sept. 24 closing here. MFA staffers say there's an upcoming exhibit of a private collection later this summer at the MFA that will offer a nice crossover, featuring works by some of those same artists.

Comments

[Jeff Bradford]

Hello,

The link to the Americans in Paris exhibition in your article is incorrect.

Please use this one instead:

http://www.mfa.org/exhibitions/sub.asp?key=15&subkey=2070

Merci!