Normandy, the birthplace of the Impressionist movement, will host one of France's major cultural events this summer -- the Normandy Impressionist Festival. From May through September, towns across both Upper and Lower Normandy will participate with exhibits, concerts, and celebrations not only of painting, but of all the artistic disciplines (music, dance, literature) influenced by Impressionism.
Heading up the festival will be a ground-breaking exhibition at the Rouen Fine Arts Museum, "A City for Impressionism: Monet, Pissarro, Gauguin in Rouen." The exhibit will explore this Rouen's influence on the Impressionist movement through some 100 paintings taken from public and private collections from around the world. Many are masterpieces which have never been exhibited in public (June 4 to Sept. 26).
Two significant exhibitions will take place at the André Malraux Museum in Le Havre, home to the second-largest collection of Impressionist works in France (after the Musée d'Orsay). The first, "Unpublished Degas: Degas from the Senn Donation," will show a collection of mostly unpublished drawings and pastels by Degas (June 12 to Sept. 19). The second, "Signac: Ports of France," contains a series of watercolors Signac did of 100 French ports.
Other major cultural sites in Normandy will illustrate the diversity of the Impressionist theme via its origins, its major sites, or its practices -- the works of Boudin and Jongkind will be on display in Cherbourg; Renoir and Pissarro will be exhibited at the Castle-Museum in Dieppe; Corot's works will be shown at the Saint-Lo Fine Arts Museum; Impressionist prints will be on display the Caen Fine Arts Museum; Riesner's paintings will be shown at the Lisieux Museum; and various depictions of the Seine will be exhibited at the Impressionist Museum in Giverny.
Initiated by former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius and in partnership with numerous government authorities (including the Regional Governments of Upper and Lower Normandy, the counties of Seine-Maritime and Eure, and the cities of Rouen and Caen), this exciting festival is overseen by Pierre Bergé, the former president of the Paris National Opéra and art collector, and lifetime partner of Yves Saint-Laurent. This multidisciplinary celebration is on an unprecedented scale for France. For more information, visit www.franceguide.com.
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