Brettell Lecture: The Day Impressionism Began

On April 15, 1874, an exhibition organized by the "Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, etc." opened in Paris at the studio of the photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. These artists would soon become known by another name: the Impressionists. In celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, join Dr. Kimberly Jones, Curator of Nineteenth-Century French Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, as she invites you to travel back in time to a Paris still recovering from civil war but full of energy and optimism. There you will meet the diverse band of artists who started a revolution in art and learn about the rich artistic landscape in which it flourished.

Kimberly A. Jones received her PhD from the University of Maryland in 1996. A former museum fellow at the Musée national du château de Pau and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, she joined the curatorial staff of the National Gallery of Art in 1995. Jones has served as curator and catalogue author for a number of exhibitions devoted to French art of the 19th century, including Degas at the Races (1998), Edouard Vuillard (2003–2004), In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet (2008), From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection (2010–2011), Degas/Cassatt (2014), Frédéric Bazille and the Birth of Impressionism (2016–2017), and, most recently, Degas at the Opéra (2020). She is part of the curatorial team for Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment, which opens in Paris at the Musée d’Orsay in March 2024 before traveling to Washington in September.

This lecture is presented by the Richard R. Brettell Lecture Series.