“A Day in the Country:
The Impressionists and the French Landscape”

Thursday, September 29, 2016
11:00 a.m.
Sanderson Gallery

Gloria Groom, Ph.D., Chair of European Painting and Sculpture and
David and Mary Winton Green Curator, Art Institute of Chicago

An expert on French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art, Groom will discuss the history and characteristics of French Impressionism, and detail how artists escaped to the countryside to paint en plein air. The founders of the style influenced the American Impressionists and their establishment of artists’ colonies in scenic locations.
Gloria Groom is an internationally acclaimed scholar and author on 19th century French painting with a doctorate from The University of Texas at Austin and graduate certificate from the École du Louvre, Paris. In 1993, her book, Edouard Vuillard: Painter-Decorator, was published by Yale University Press. Since joining the Art Institute in 1984, she has been involved in major monographic exhibitions and catalogues including Gauguin, Odilon Redon, Caillebotte, Renoir, Manet, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and thematic exhibitions on the art dealer Ambroise Vollard (2008), Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity (2012-2013), and most recently Van Gogh’s Bedrooms (2016). Her current exhibition Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist in collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay will open next summer in Chicago. In addition to exhibitions, since 2009, Groom has led the project for monographic online scholarly collection catalogues on the Impressionist collection (to date: Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Caillebotte, with Manet and Gauguin forthcoming) involving an international team of scholars, conservators and scientists. In addition to being named Chevalier des arts et des lettres and Officier in 2013, she was honored as Chevalier in the Légion d’honneur in April 2016.