The Musée d’Orsay is one of the world's must-visit art galleries, with the largest collection of impressionist paintings in the world. But if you can't make it all the way to Paris, you only need to make a quick trip to Adelaide for a taste of the French gallery's hoard.
The Art Gallery of South Australia has secured Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, a major exhibition of works by almost every significant impressionist painter: Monet, Manet, Renoir, Seurat, Cézanne, Boudin, Gaugin to name just a few.
Works from Musée d’Orsay were seen in Melbourne back in 2004 and in Canberra in an exhibition in 2009, but this is the first major exhibition of the gallery's collection in Australia since then. It's a pretty big coup for the Art Gallery of SA, which is led by director Nick Mitzevich, who's proving himself to be one of the smoothest operators in Australia's art scene.
The gallery will be displaying the exhibition in a perfect wing: the 19th century Elder Wing, which is full of natural light and not too dissimilar to the real Musée d’Orsay, situated inside a disused train station.
There are ten works by Monet being exhibited, including one of his many water lilies paintings (pictured above). One of the other big highlights is 'La Pie' (The Magpie), an evocative snowscape which proved to be surprisingly controversial when it was completed in 1869.
Monet submitted the painting to the Paris Salon – probably the most important regular art exhibition in the world at the time – but it was rejected for being "too common and too coarse". His use of colour and light in the painting was completely unconventional and it seems the art world just wasn't ready.
Musée d’Orsay acquired the work in 1984 and it quickly became one of the gallery's most popular paintings.
Colours of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay opens on March 29.