California Impressionism · Masters of Light presents thirty paintings that reveal the exceptional beauty and rugged California coastline. While some of these late 19th- and early 20th-century artists are renowned, others remain unknown east of the Mississippi.

[metaslider id=447]

When the first Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1874, French critics derided it as radical art. But by 1886 Americans could purchase Impressionist paintings at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in New York. American artists embraced the French movement’s use of light, color, and optics and personally traveled to Paris to study and work en plein air, taking their easels outside, working directly after nature. On loan from the Irvine Museum, works by Franz Bischoff, Colin Campbell Cooper, Anna Hills, Granville Redmond, and Guy Rose are included in the exhibition.