Modern Times — Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art

The collections of Impressionist and modern art stand among the great glories of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The selection of masterpieces from these collections on view in “Modern Times” allows one to trace the revolutionary development of art in the Modern age – from early Impressionism to the beginning of the avant-garde – while offering a rare opportunity to enjoy some of art history’s greatest moments.

The exhibition features canonical works representing the most outstanding new art movements of the time: works by celebrated Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters, including Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas,  Édouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir; pieces by the great masters of modern avant-garde, including Constantin Brancusi, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso; and works by exceptional surrealists, such as Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, and Joan Miró. Also notable in the exhibition are masterpieces by women artists, including Mary Cassatt, Marie Laurencin, and Berthe Morisot.

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Philadelphia Museum of Art

Founded in 1876, the Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the United States’ oldest public art museums and has long been recognized as one of its finest.

Possessed of a rich and distinguished history and a remarkable collection of over 240,000 works that span more than 2,000 years of artistic production, the Museum is international in scope and stature. Remarkable works in its holdings include the largest collection in the world of Marcel Duchamp’s work, as well as key works by the great masters of European painting from the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century.
The great distinction of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection of Impressionist and modern art is the degree to which it has been shaped by gifts not only of individual works of art but also of entire collections with their own strong personalities. What is also remarkable is the extent to which those original collections were formed in close collaboration with artists. Americans in general and Philadelphians in particular were among the first avid collectors of Impressionism, in large part due to the Pennsylvania-born artist Mary Cassatt, who lived and worked in Paris. As a talented painter and the sister of one of Philadelphia’s most prominent businessmen, Cassatt was well placed to promote Impressionism and encouraged a generation of America’s leading entrepreneurs to acquire works by the pioneering French painters. One of the most notable collections gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art is that of Louise and Walter Arensberg, a cornerstone of twentieth-century avant-garde art in Philadelphia. With guidance from a few artists, particularly Marcel Duchamp, they purchased works by artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, and Duchamp himself.