Masterpieces

Alfred Sisley was born to British parents but raised in France, spending much of his life there based initially in Paris, and then moving for quieter spaces by 1880 where he continued to develop his Impressionist style. This 1882 oil painting is titled Washerwomen, Near Champagne, and finds a group of washerwomen along the banks of the Champagne-sur-Seine.

Bowl With Zinnias And Other Flowers is an 1886 oil painting by Vincent van Gogh, with its bright colours reflecting his recent arrival in Paris.

The master Impressionist Claude Monet painted Rough Sea in 1881. The oil painting has his signature style of beginning a painting with en plein air painting on the spot before moving to the studio, capturing the surf along the French coast.

A more recent acquisition is one that I've included the panel with. Vilhelm Hammershoi painted Sunshine In The Drawing Room in 1910. The Danish artist often used the motif of spare interior rooms and a woman (his wife) present inside in his work. The Gallery acquired this one in 2017, and it was included last year in a special exhibit at the Gallery with Impressionist paintings from the Ordrupgaard gallery in Copenhagen. The exhibit also featured other Hammershoi works. 

Here we have a view from above of the garden courtyard.

Marc Chagall was an early Modernist painter with multiple roots- Russian, French, and Jewish. This painting, The Eiffel Tower, gives a variety of motifs in the mix- the tower, the garden, the boudoir. Painted in 1929, it was the subject of some controversy in the country last year, which the accompanying panel references. The Gallery had sought to purchase a painting at a Quebec parish (visible in the panel) and had moved to place this Chagall up for auction. There was a considerable uproar in the country, funds were brought in by an anonymous donor to ensure the other painting would be kept in Canada, and the Gallery withdrew the Chagall from being auctioned. It has been brought out for display.

The world art section ends in a space that is used for temporary exhibits. Last fall, to mark the centennial of the end of World War One, the exhibit in question became 1918 Halifax Harbour, displaying paintings and sketches from two artists of the harbour and its surroundings, which had been marked by the war- the Halifax Explosion of December 1917 killed nearly two thousand people. We'll have a look at that exhibit tomorrow.