French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850–1950

November 7, 2026 - March 28, 2027

${altHeader}
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919). The Vineyards at Cagnes, 1908. Oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 21 3/4 in. (46.4 x 55.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Colonel and Mrs. Edgar W. Garbisch, 51.219. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)

About the Exhibition

French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850–1950 exhibits fifty nine works of art from the Brooklyn Museum’s renowned European collection and privileges France as the artistic center of international modernism from the mid-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Ranging widely in scale, subject matter, and style, these paintings, drawings, and sculptures were produced by the era’s leading artists, those born in France as well as those who studied and showed there, including Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Caillebotte, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Edgar Degas, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Henri Matisse, Jean-François Millet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Édouard Vuillard, and more.

The works in the exhibition exemplify the avant-garde movements that defined modern art in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, tracing a shift from capturing the visual to evoking the idea, from an emphasis on naturalism to the rise of abstraction. 

French Moderns: Monet to Matisse, 1850–1950 is organized by the Brooklyn Museum and curated by Rich Aste (former Curator of European Art, Brooklyn Museum), and Lisa Small (Senior Curator, European Art, Brooklyn Museum).

 

Admission: free

Special Thanks to our generous sponsors:

Ramona and Robert Deal | Mary Katherine Evans
William and Janice Grace | Elizabeth Holt ‘79 | Larry King Law
Patricia ‘02 and Dan Mooza | Mary Neale | Gina Fitzhugh Wilson
City of Newport News LogoTowneBank Logo     Newport News Arts Commission Logo
${alt}
Auguste Rodin (French, 1840–1917). She Who Was the Helmet Maker's Once-Beautiful Wife, 1885–87; cast 1969. Bronze, 19.75 x 13 x 9.75 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation, 86.87.2. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Henri Fantin-Latour (French, 1836-1904). Portrait of Madame Léon Maître (Portrait of Madame Léon Maître), 1882. Oil on canvas, 50 x 55.5 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of A. Augustus Healy and George A. Hearn, 06.69. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Camille Pissarro (French, 1830–1903). The Climb, Rue de la Côte-du-Jalet, Pontoise, 1875. Oil on canvas, 21.25 x 25.87 in. Brooklyn Museum, Purchased with funds given by Dikran G. Kelekian, 22.60. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Jean-Léon Gérôme (French, 1824–1904). The Carpet Merchant of Cairo, 1869. Oil on canvas, 31.87 x 22 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Joseph Gluck, 74.208. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877). The Edge of the Pool (Au Bord de l'Etang), 1867. Oil on canvas, 31.75 x 39.37 in. Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer, Mrs. Frederic B. Pratt, and Hyman Brown, by exchange, 1992.17. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Paul Cézanne (French, 1839–1906). The Village of Gardanne, 1885–86. Oil and conté crayon on canvas, 36.25 x 28.81 in. Brooklyn Museum, Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund and Alfred T. White Fund, 23.105. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917). Portrait of a Man (Portrait d'homme), ca. 1866. Oil on canvas, 34 x 25.5 in. Museum Collection Fund, 21.112. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
${alt}
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French, 1796–1875). Young Women of Sparta, 1868–70. Oil on canvas, 16.75 x 29.44 in. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer, 42.195. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)