Scholar Talk: Amanda C. Burdan at the Figge Art Museum -- July 28(pictured: Lilly Cabot Perry's "A Stream Beneath Poplars").
Thursday, July 28, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Held in conjunction with the Davenport venue's current exhibition John Leslie Breck: American Impressionist, the Brandywine River Museum of Art's Senior Curator Amanda C. Burdan will present a July 28 Scholar Talk at the Figge Art Museum, exploring the artwork of a highly recognized painter, and those who preceded and followed her, in “Impressionistes Américaines: Lilla Cabot Perry & the American Women Impressionists."
Born in Boston in 1848, Perry was an American artist who worked in the American Impressionist style, rendering portraits and landscapes in the free form manner of her mentor Claude Monet. Perry was an early advocate of the French Impressionist style and contributed to its reception in the United States, and the painter's early work was shaped by her exposure to the Boston School of artists and her travels in Europe and Japan. She was also greatly influenced by Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophies and her friendship with Camille Pissarro. Although it was not until the age of thirty-six that Perry received formal training, her work with artists of the Impressionist, Realist, Symbolist, and German Social Realist movements greatly affected the style of her oeuvre.
Perry's blending of eastern and western aesthetics and her sensitive visions of the feminine and natural worlds offered significant stylistic contributions to both the American and French Impressionist schools, with her vocal advocacy for the Impressionist movement helping to make it possible for other American Impressionists such as Mary Cassatt to gain the exposure and acceptance they needed in the states. She furthered the American careers of her close friends Monet and John Breck by lecturing stateside on their talents and showcasing their works, and also worked closely with Camille Pissarro to assist him in his dire financial situation by selling his work to friends and family in America.
With "Impressionistes Américaines: Lilla Cabot Perry & the American Women Impressionists," Burdan will present a fascinating story of the rise of American Impressionism that will introduce Figge guests to such artists as Breck, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, and Theodore Robinson, who traveled to the French village of Giverny, where Monet made his home. Decades of scholarship have focused on these and other men, but the lure of Impressionism was just as enticing, if not more so, for female artists. Cassatt, the only American to exhibit with the group of French Impressionists, blazed a trail for women artists from her homeland, and like Cassat, Perry played an important role in propagating the style in the United States. Examining the motives and experiences of artists such as Perry, Evelyn McCormick, Helen Turner, and Elizabeth Nourse, Boudan's Figge event will uncover a captivating alternative account of American Impressionism.
The Scholar Talk with Amanda C. Burdan will take place on July 28, admission to the 6:30 p.m. event is free, and the John Leslie Breck: American Impressionist will be on display through August 28. For more information, call (563)326-7804 and visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.
