The Frist Art Museum presents The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art, an exhibition that tells the enthralling story of Impressionism from its origins in 1874 to its legacy in the early 20th century through paintings and sculptures by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh, and many others. Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view in the Frist’s Upper-Level Galleries from February 26 through May 31, 2026.
Through nearly 50 paintings and sculptures, The Impressionist Revolution reveals the rebellious origins of the independent artist collective known as the Impressionists and the revolutionary course they charted for modern art. Breaking with tradition in both how and what they painted, the Impressionists redefined what constituted cutting-edge contemporary art. The unique innovations of its core members, including Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, set the foundation for generations of avant-garde artists that followed, from Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh to Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse.
Coming shortly after the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 in Paris, The Impressionist Revolution invites visitors to reconsider these now-beloved artists—once thought to be scandalous renegades—as well as the impact they had on 20th-century art. In the exhibition catalogue, Dr. Nicole Myers, the Dallas Museum of Art’s Chief Curatorial and Research Officer and the Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art, writes, “Although today we use the term Impressionist to loosely describe the aesthetic of short, staccato strokes of bright pigments applied rapidly, Impressionism as it emerged in the 1870s wasn’t a single, unified style. Rather, it reflected a shared desire among a small group of avant-garde artists to capture their experience of contemporary life through subject and style.”…