Paris Comes to Toronto

I had a chance to check out the Impressionist exhibition at the AGO.  It was a nice show.  I wasn't completely surprised that there were a number of small prints and photos, particularly towards the front end of the show, which definitely threw off the flow of visitors.  I knew I'd be coming back several times, so I didn't get too caught up in the smaller works and focused on the main paintings.

Here is a lithograph by Vuillard that I was able to get close enough to view.

Edouard Vuillard, La Patisserie, 1899

There were also three lithographs of the Eiffel Tower, which was part of a series called Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower by Henri Riviere, who was attempting to bring the spirit of Hokusai to 19th Century Paris.  I actually have a reprint of the entire album, and it is pretty neat.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of Caillebotte paintings on view.  I believe there are five, perhaps even six, including one from a private collection that has been on display at the AGO for a while.  (I think the hope is that it will eventually be donated.  It's certainly not a major work, but Caillebotte is among the rarer museum acquisitions (as he was wealthy enough he didn't need to sell his paintings to make a living), so it would be a bit of a coup to land one.)

This painting, from Geneva, was to me the stand-out work in the whole exhibition.

Gustave Caillebotte, Le Pont de l'Europe, 1876

.
I'd actually seen it previously, in a major Caillebotte retrospective* at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1995, but it was great seeing it again.

In addition to some well chosen Pissarros, Sisleys and Monets, there were several paintings by Maximilien Luce, with whom I am much less familiar.  While his large painting The Steelworks is very prominent, I particularly liked this smaller painting, Factory in the Moonlight.

Maximilien Luce, Factory in the Moonlight, 1898

The exhibition closed with a row of Monets.  One is on loan from the McMaster Museum of Art, which I must admit I have never visited, while the other is from the AGO collection, though I am not certain I have ever seen it before.

Claude Monet, Charing Cross Bridge, Fog, 1902

The good news is that I will have several more times to see it and these other Impressionist paintings before the exhibit closes in early May.  I definitely thought this was time well-spent, almost enough to make up for the lousy weather this Feb.

* For some reason I never got around to picking up this catalog, even though it is one the best monographs on Caillebotte out there.  I ordered a copy just the other day (though I had to grit my teeth to pay the extra postage from the US).