Monet, Renoir, van Gogh masterpieces appear in two new blockbuster exhibitions

Impressionism's legacy reconsidered in blockbuster exhibitions at AGSA and Geelong Gallery Wed 15 Jul 2026 at 4:30am When French art critic Louis Leroy cast his eyes on the works featured in the First Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in 1874, he couldn't have been less impressed. The groundbreaking show featured paintings by the likes of Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir that had been rejected by official government-sanctioned art exhibition the Paris Salon. In his subsequent brutal take-down of the show, Leroy coined the term Impressionism — taken from the title of a Monet work, Impression, Sunrise, which featured in the exhibition — which he intended as a criticism. To his eye, the works were no more than unfinished sketches. More than 150 years later, the prevailing view of Impressionism has changed. Today, the works of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and their peers, revered as masterpieces, are among the most valuable artworks ever created. Two new blockbuster exhibitions — Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition at the Art Gallery of South Australia, organised by the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio, and Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel, Art Dealer Among the Artists, at Geelong Gallery — throw new light on the long-lasting legacy of this influential art movement. What made Impressionism radical? The Impressionists' revolutionary use of light and colour set them apart from their contemporaries in the Paris Salon. At the time, artists tended to work in the studio, where light was limited. The Impressionists were the first to take their easels outdoors. "With the invention of tubed paint — something incredibly novel that allows for brand new pigments that are synthetically made — folks are then able to go outside of the studio and paint in plein air," says Erin Corrales-Diaz, curator of American Art at the Toledo Museum of Art. "They can paint out of doors. Suddenly, it's a much more accessible medium." The effect of painting plein air was dramatic. "They were able to work in full light," says Marianne Mathieu, co-curator of Discovering the Impressionists at Geelong Gallery, which reconsiders the art movement through the lens of art dealer Paul Durand Ruel's legacy. "It had a tremendous impact on their painting, and from one day to another, the painting changed tremendously." Who was Paul Durand-Ruel? While the Impressionists faced derision for their unorthodox style, they found a supporter in the form of Durand-Ruel, a second-generation Parisian art dealer. Durand-Ruel first encountered the work of Monet and Pissarro in London, where he had opened a gallery after fleeing France upon the outbreak of war with Prussia in 1870. Entranced, he immediately took up the Impressionist cause. "He gambled everything," says Mathieu. "He devoted his life to them." Despite the French public's ongoing disdain, Durand-Ruel championed the Impressionists for decades, establishing lucrative international markets for the artists' work that provided them with much-needed income. Durand-Ruel also championed a second generation of Impressionists, whose work also appears in Discovering the Impressionists: Albert André, Georges d'Espagnat, Gustave Loiseau, Maxime Maufra and Henry Moret. While these artists were concerned with capturing light and the changing atmosphere through the use of colour like their forebears, they have been largely overlooked — something Mathieu is keen to remedy. "They didn't initiate anything new," she says. "What they do share [with the first generation of Impressionists] is the same sense of colour and joy." Impressionism in the US Monet to Matisse presents works from the Toledo Museum of Art by leading European and American artists of the 19th and 20th centuries alongside local works from the AGSA collection. Many of the 19th century American artists featured in the show first encountered Impressionism while studying abroad and brought the style's techniques home with them. In 1891, artist William Merritt Chase (whose work appears in the AGSA show) opened a summer school at Shinnecock on Long Island, where he taught Impressionist techniques such as plein air painting. "What you begin to see is American artists taking that loose brushwork, the dynamic colours, but then transcribing that into a much more urban environment," Corrales-Diaz says. This cultural exchange began to operate in reverse in the 20th century as European artists fled to the US to escape war and persecution, where Corrales-Diaz says they introduced American audiences to the European avant-garde. "You have [European-born] artists like [László] Moholy-Nagy, Ilya Bolotowsky, Josef Albers, and many of them are founding art schools in … the States, introducing American students to this material." Their influence gives rise to the Abstract Expressionist movement, which flourished in New York in the postwar period. What follows is "a shift of the epicentres of the art world from Paris to New York, [demonstrating] the dynamism and translation that is apparent in the exhibition", Corrales-Diaz says. Legacy of Impressionism AGSA curator Tansy Curtin says it isn't surprising 19th-century audiences were slow to embrace Impressionism. "New things can always be challenging. Look at contemporary art today — a lot of people find a lot of contemporary art very challenging." She says the passage of time allows us to appreciate these 19th century artworks without the complicating factor of navigating social critique. "While we know that they are making grand statements about the history of art … they're also not challenging us in a way where they're expecting us to unpack what's happening in society right here and right now," Curtin says. "Distance gives us space to think about it." To the modern viewer, Impressionism captures a sense of joy. "One of the reasons people respond so positively to Impressionism today is that wonderful sense of dynamism and the use of colour," Curtin says. The curators of Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition at AGSA and Discovering the Impressionists at Geelong Gallery share a selection of highlights from their respective exhibitions. Portrait of Paul Durand-Ruel (1910) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir Durand-Ruel commissioned Renoir to paint portraits of his children when they were teenagers and the artist was struggling to make a living. He commissioned his own portrait from Renoir much later, when he was 80 years old. The finished work — the only portrait of Durand-Ruel — shows the silver-haired art dealer as the picture of success. It's an affectionate and accurate representation of the man, says his great-granddaughter, Claire Durand-Ruel, a Pissarro expert and a co-curator of the Discovering the Impressionists exhibition. Renoir and his fellow Impressionists were deeply grateful to Durand-Ruel for his support. "They always said that it was thanks to him that they could live and paint what they wanted to paint," Claire Durand-Ruel says. "You can feel Renoir's love for the dealer in this very peaceful portrait." Fir trees at Varengeville (1882) by Claude Monet Mathieu describes Monet's Fir trees at Varengeville (Sapins à Varengeville) — part of the Discovering the Impressionists exhibition — as the archetype of Impressionist painting. Depicting a sun-dappled view of the sea seen through a screen of trees, the painting is one of a series of landscapes the artist produced while staying on the Normandy coast in 1882. Its vivid palette and luminosity are the result of the Impressionist technique of painting en plein air. "When you work outside, under the sunlight, it has a direct effect on your painting. The colours are … brighter, clearer," Mathieu says. "And when you work outdoors, your work session is short, so you have to work quickly, so you see the brushstrokes." At the time, Monet's approach to colour was considered radical. It was very different to that of the Impressionists' predecessors, the artists of the Barbizon School, who worked indoors to produce realist landscapes characterised by verisimilitude and natural palettes. "It sounds for us obvious to have blue, pink, yellows as the main colours for a landscape," Mathieu says. "But before Monet … it wasn't the reality." Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice (1905) by Paul Signac French Neo-Impressionist painter Paul Signac's 1905 work, Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice — on show at AGSA — is the product of Divisionism, a technique drawing on colour theory that creates the sense of light through the application of tiny dabs of colour. Featuring an almost neon palette, Entrance to the Grand Canal, Venice is comprised of "little rectangles of pure pigment", Curtin explains. "What he's done is create this really clever undulating surface that beautifully emulates the movement of the canals, of the water, and of course of the sky and the clouds." Curtin says the work is an example of art and science coming together. "We all see and perceive colour in different ways," she says. "[Signac] is expecting us to physically, with our optic nerve, interpret this work." Wheat Fields with Reaper, Auvers (1890) by Vincent van Gogh Throughout his life, Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh returned again and again to the wheat field as a subject in his work. Wheat Fields with Reaper, Auvers, featured in Monet to Matisse, was painted in 1890, shortly before van Gogh's death in July of that year. Seeing the work in person reveals its distinctly textural quality, the artist's hand visible in the thick application of paint. "You can see the brushstrokes," Corrales-Diaz says. "It is so sculptural. I like to refer to it as like frosting, as if you've run your fingers through some deep buttercream — it has that dimensionality." Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel, Art Dealer Among the Artists is at Geelong Gallery until October 11, 2026. Monet to Matisse: Defying Tradition is at the Art Gallery of South Australia until November 8, 2026.