NEW YORK, NY.- Hammer Galleries present their current exhibition Impressionist Masters on view through August 30, 2013. A virtual tour of the exhibition is viewable by clicking here: http://www.vtg360.com/0172/index.html#p=scene-1

Featuring over twenty oils and works on paper Impressionist Masters focuses on key works by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-August Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Comprised of works ranging in date from 1870 through the early 1900s, the exhibition includes paintings created during the initial phases of the Impressionist movement through the later stages of each of these artists’ careers.

The name ‘Impressionism’, first coined by a disapproving critic to describe his reaction to Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, 1872 , now signifies one of the most influential and admired periods in art history. United by their interest in independence from the official Salon, the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. embarked upon the first of eight independent exhibitions in 1874. Fueled by the new iconography that modern Parisian life provided in the late 19th century, their radical new approach to art included a fresh understanding of color and light and an increasing interest in the leisure activities enjoyed by the bourgeoisie.

More than a century has passed since the first Impressionist exhibition, but the fascination with this period continues today. It remains a consistently popular subject for many celebrated museum exhibitions including two current museum shows in New York: Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and The Impressionist Line From Degas to Toulouse-Lautrec: Drawings and Prints From the Clark, at the Frick Collection. Hammer Galleries’ Impressionist Masters exhibition offers visitors the unique opportunity to view a select group of Impressionist works in an intimate gallery setting. Hammer Galleries has specialized in Impressionist paintings and works on paper for over fifty years. A fully illustrated 64 page catalog will accompany the exhibition.