Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: The Hermitage, Leningrad, The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, and The National Gallery of Art, Washington
10.5 x 13 inches, 336 pages, 277 illustrations, hardcover - $34.50
Introductions by William James Williams and Marina Bessonova. PARK LANE/New York in association with Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, Inc./New York and Aurora Art Publishers/Leningrad
Since the late nineteenth century, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting has had an enthusiastic audience both east and west of France among Russian and American lovers of art. This unique book handsomely presents an exceptional era in the history of art and reflects its continuing popularity in both nations.
Presented here are 277 paintings in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow: and The Hermitage, Leningrad. Masterworks from the great national collections of the United States and the Soviet Union are brought together for the first time in a single volume featuring the art of Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Matisse, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir, Rouault, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, and other painters of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist schools.
Accompanying the color plates are authoritative texts by American and Soviet art historians. They tell stories not only of individual works and artists, but also of far-sighted collectors in both countries. We learn about the Moscow connoisseurs Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, who early in the century were major supporters of artists who were barely recognized, such as Matisse and Bonnard, and about Chester Dale, the Wall Street investor whose purchases of French art initiated the National Gallery's collection of modern works.
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism is a product of international cooperation on several levels-betwen publishers, between nations, and between cultures. It is devoted to the common desire of all people to appreciate and understand great art as a universal means of expression and communication that transcends all national boundaries.