Opening Lecture - Women Impressionists and The Land

Simon Kelly is giving a talk on Tuesday, October 27, at Wrighton Hall, 300 on the Washington University campus, to open the Saint Louis Art Museum's new exhibition, Women Impressionists and the Land. The show is the museum's first one dedicated specifically to how women Impressionists engaged with landscape and the natural world, and it brings together about 70 works created between 1860 and 1910.

Most of the time, these artists are associated with domestic subjects—interiors, family, the private sphere. This exhibition moves past that to look at their relationship with outdoor spaces: coastlines, countryside, parks, gardens, and cultivated land. You'll see work by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond, and Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, among others.

Kelly curated the show with curatorial assistant Abigail Yoder. He's the Curator and Head of the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, a specialist in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French art whose research focuses on Impressionism, landscape painting, and the history of the art market. He studied at the University of Cambridge and earned his PhD from the University of Oxford.

The talk itself is in French, followed by a moderated discussion and a Q&A. It's open to WashU students, faculty, and the broader community, though you'll need to RSVP. It runs from 10:00 to 11:20 AM on Tuesday, October 27, at Wrighton Hall, 300.