Frederic Bazille and Early Impressionism

Abstract

This exhibition is the first one entirely devoted to this artist in the United States. It enlarges upon the scope of past exhibitions at the Art Institute in being more than a retrospective of one artist. Bazille met Renoir, Sisley and Monet in the studio of the Academic painter Gleyre. All artists worked together, sharing studios and models. Together with Bazille's work paintings by these other artists will be shown, as well as paintings by lesser known artists, such as the German painter Otto Scholderer who appears next to Bazille in Fantin-Latour's Atelier des Batignolles. Also included will be painters of the South of France (Bazille was born in Montpellier) such as Eugene Castelnau, a personal friend of Bazille and Paul Guigou. The catalogue will include an essay on Bazille and early Impressionism, and another on Bazille and Edmond Maitre, a dilettante friend of his whose influence on the group of young painters was tremendous. The catalogue will also present for the first time in English the correspondence of Bazille with his parents. All works will be reproduced, fully catalogued and commented on. The exhibition was made possible through the generosity of many private and public collections, including the Musde Fabre, Montpellier, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. It will be shown in Chicago only. A short film on Bazille, realized by Roger Leenhardt, will be shown in connection with the exhibition.