Sargent and Impressionism – an exceptional selection of landscapes and interiors painted by John Singer Sargent – will be on view at Adelson Galleries from November 4 through December 18, 2010. Culled from museum and private collections in the United States and abroad, the exhibition’s 28 oil paintings, three watercolors and one ink drawing date from 1883 to 1889. Known as the artist’s Impressionist period, Sargent spent the years immediately following the Madame X scandal withdrawing from Paris to immerse himself in a new social setting in England. With few portrait commissions to occupy him, this was a period when Sargent pursued stylistic experimentation and furthered his relationship with Claude Monet. The exhibition catalogue includes a significant essay, Sargent, Monet…and Manet, which discusses 17 newly-published letters written by Sargent to Monet, touching upon Sargent’s role in rescuing Manet’s Olympia (Musée d’Orsay) from purchase by an American collector in 1889 to secure its place in the collection of the French National Museums.

Sargent and Impressionism features paintings that focus on the effects of light and water; leisure activities captured en plein air; and interior scenes of every-day life. Works on view include dazzling landscapes with family, friends and fellow artists in informal outdoor settings. Additional highlights include two important oil studies for Sargent’s masterpiece, Carnation, Lily, Lily Rose (Tate Gallery, London). Many of the exhibited works are on loan from private collections and have rarely been on public view. Institutional loans include works from the Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Flint Institute of the Arts, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and Yale University Art Gallery, among others.

Sargent and Impressionism is Adelson Galleries’ fourth exhibition exclusively devoted to the work of John Singer Sargent, following Sargent’s Venice (2007), Sargent’s Women (2003) and Sargent Abroad (1997). This loan show continues a 30-year tradition of scholarship on the artist begun by Warren Adelson, an internationally recognized authority on Sargent.