LONDON.- The Stern Pissarro Gallery is celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition. From 30 May¬–29 June 2024, directed by David Stern and Lélia Pissarro, the great-granddaughter of Camille Pissarro, the gallery presents a museum quality exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. Stern Pissarro’s heritage makes it uniquely positioned to pay homage to the influential 1874 exhibition, to champion the art of Impressionist masters and highlight their enduring legacy.

This important anniversary is being marked with exhibitions at major institutions including the the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. ‘Celebrating 150 Years of Impressionism’ at Stern Pissarro has added resonance because it marks the 60th anniversary of the gallery itself.

The first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 brought together thirty-one artists who sought liberation from rigid academic painting and was organised by Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. This circle of artists, known for painting landscapes and contemporary life en plein air, emerged in reaction to routine rejection by the Salon de Paris and mockery at the Salon des Refusés. While the exhibition was criticised by the art establishment and the press, the now iconic term "Impressionist" was inadvertently coined in a satirical review by critic Louis Leroy. The public, initially sceptical, embraced Impressionism, and over time the movement flourished, marking the birth of modern art.

‘Celebrating 150 Years of Impressionism’ will feature paintings, sculpture, and works on paper by the movement’s foremost trailblazers. On view will be paintings, including landscapes by Pissarro, Monet and Sisley, portraits and landscapes by Renoir and port scenes by Eugène Boudin, as well as works on paper by Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot and Paul Cézanne. Among the Post-Impressionists, there will be works by Paul Gauguin, Henri Martin, Gustave Loiseau, Henri Lebasque, Claude-Émile Schuffenecker, and Lucien Pissarro, as well as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, including Femme de Maison (1894), as illustrated. The exhibition includes works on loan from private collections, as well as those for sale.