Doing the rounds

As we have Claude & Co. on show at Te Papa and have just purchased the new Phaidon book Salon to Biennial, let’s celebrate the First Impressionist Exhibition which opened 135 years ago last week on 15 April (it closed on 15 May – attendance 3500 – it’s that sort of book). It was of course one of Monet’s paintings that goaded critic Louis Leroy to disparage his work with the newly-minted term, Impressionism. Monet probably inspired it himself by titling his work Impression Sunrise. The painting is currently on show at the Nagoya/ Boston Museum of Fine Arts on loan from the Musée Marmottan in Paris. The Nagoya / Boston is sister museum to the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston in a Guggenheim-like relationship intended to widen the reach of the Boston institution. The MFA has in turn lent more of its Monet and Impressionist stockpile for the Te Papa show. There you go, full circle.
Image: Cover for the First Impressionism exhibition