Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), Autumn on the Seine, Argenteuil, 1873, oil on canvas, purchase with funds from the Forward Arts Foundation, The Buisson Foundation, Eleanor McDonald Storza Estate, Frances Cheney Boggs Estate, Katherine John Murphy Foundation, and High Museum of Art Enhancement Fund, 2000.205.
The High’s European Art collection comprises more than a thousand paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, spanning six centuries of artistic endeavor, from the 1300s through the 1900s.
In 1958, the Samuel H. Kress Foundation donated what remains the core of the High’s Old Master collection of Renaissance and Baroque painting; acquisitions since then allow the Museum to represent most major European art movements. Thanks to the gifts of the Doris and Shouky Shaheen Collection and the Iris and Howard Stein Collection, the High boasts important holdings of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings and nineteenth-century French sculpture. The European print collection, displayed on a rotating basis, ranges from iconic Renaissance engravings to a large cache of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec lithographs.
Explore the European Art Collection
European HIGHlights
The High’s holdings of European art include iconic and characteristic works by some of the most celebrated European artists, such as Albrecht Dürer, Giovanni Bellini, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Charles Cordier, Claude Monet, and Amedeo Modigliani.
Renaissance and Baroque Paintings
The High’s Baroque paintings include works by Giovanni Battista Gaulli (Il Baciccio), Pieter Lastman, Nicolas Tournier, and Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Il Guercino). Baroque art—made in Europe in the late sixteenth through early eighteenth centuries—is characterized by dramatic action, strong diagonal lines that create depth, and emotionally charged imagery.
Nineteenth-Century Landscapes
The most incisive artistic innovations in nineteenth-century European art were made through landscape painting. The High’s collection covers the most important of these developments: the practice of painting out of doors by artists of the Barbizon School; the focus on light and atmosphere favored by the Impressionists; and the exploration of scientific color theories by Post-Impressionists.
Nineteenth-Century Sculpture
The High’s collection of nineteenth-century sculpture demonstrates the ingenuity and vision of artists working in that period. The Museum’s diverse holdings include works in marble, bronze, plaster, and terra-cotta by artists such as Antoine-Louis Barye, Aimé-Jules Dalou, Auguste Rodin, Pierre-Jean David d’Angers, and Jean-Joseph Carriès.
European Impressionism
Late nineteenth-century Impressionists rejected formal academic constraints on artistic subject matter and style. Their freely painted works, often executed outside, captured the artists’ immediate impressions. The High’s Impressionist collection includes paintings by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas.
European Post-Impressionism
In the wake of the Impressionists’ revolt against academic art, new and radical styles of painting flourished in France at the end of the 1800s. The High owns beautiful, groundbreaking Post-Impressionist paintings by Édouard Vuillard, Émile Bernard, Maximilien Luce, and others.
French Terra-cotta Sculpture
In the 1700s and 1800s, sculptors frequently used terra-cotta (fired clay) to make preliminary versions of sculptures, called maquettes, as well as small-scale finished figures. These intimate works, often made from live models, reveal traces of an artist’s process. The High’s collection of French terra-cottas includes works by Pierre-Eugène-Émile Hébert, François Rude, and Louis-Claude Vassé.
Toulouse-Lautrec Posters and Prints
The High’s holdings of nearly fifty works by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864–1901) include many of his iconic posters and a complete set of the Elles portfolio. The twelve lithographs in that portfolio were luxuriously printed and published in an edition of one hundred in April 1896 and offer a glimpse of life inside a brothel through expressive images of women engaged in quiet moments rather than erotic activities.
Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Posters
The High’s collection of posters encompasses designs by celebrated artists such as Jules Chéret and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and by commercial illustrators such as René Ravo and Francisque Poulbot. The posters advertise a variety of products, from cabaret performers and entertainment venues to political newspapers and trade magazines. Stylistically they range from Belle Époque vivaciousness to modernist sleekness.
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