After Impressionism: exhibition in London explores the richness and complexity of post-impressionist art

From 25 March to 13 August 2023, the National Gallery presents “After Impressionism”, an exhibition that brings together for the first time the radical art of European cities from 1886 to 1914.

Source: The National Gallery · Image: Paul Cézanne: ‘Grandes Baigneuses’, National Gallery, London

While celebrating Paris as the international artistic capital ‘After Impressionism’ will also be one of the first exhibitions to focus on the exciting and often revolutionary artistic developments across other European cities during this period. Starting with the towering achievements of Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin and Rodin, visitors will be able to journey through the art of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries created in cities such as Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Vienna and Barcelona. The exhibition closes with some of the most significant modernist works, ranging from Expressionism to Cubism and Abstraction

‘After Impressionism’ explores two main themes in the development of the visual arts in Europe at this time: ‐ the break with conventional representation of the external world,; and the forging of non-naturalist visual languages with an emphasis on the materiality of the art object expressed through line, colour, surface, texture and pattern.

Highlights of this wide-ranging international survey include André Derain’s ‘La Danse’ (Private collection), Edgar Degas’s ‘Dancers in the Foyer’ (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen); Paul Cézanne’s ‘Grandes Baigneuses’ (National Gallery, London); Edvard Munch’s ‘The Death Bed’ (KODE Bergen Art Museums, Bergen); Paul Gauguin’s ‘Vision of the Sermon’ (National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh); Camille Claudel’s ‘Imploration / l’Implorante’  (Musée Camille Claudel, Nogent-sur-Seine); and Lovis Corinth’s ‘Nana, Female Nude’ (Saint Louis Art Museum, St Louis.).

Lenders to the exhibition include the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; Musée Rodin, Paris; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; Museu nacional d’arte de Catalunya, Barcelona; Tate; and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.

‘After Impressionism’ is curated by the art historian and curator MaryAnne Stevens and Christopher Riopelle, the National Gallery’s Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, with art historian and curator Julien Domercq. MaryAnne Stevens says: ‘In this exhibition we seek to explore and define the complexities of a period in art, and in wider cultural manifestations, that can assert the claim to have broken links with tradition and laid the foundations for the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.’