Armand Guillaumin La Plaine de Bagneux, 1874 Oil on board 25 1/4 x 30 inches, signed and dated lower right

Berry-Hill Galleries is presenting the first American exhibition in over 30 years of Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927), one of the original French Impressionists. The exhibition consists of approximately 40 works, including paintings and pastels spanning the artist’s entire career and representing the full range of his subject matter, including Parisian scenes, landscapes and interiors with figures and still lifes. The fully illustrated catalogue includes an essay by Claudia Einecke, Associate Curator of European Paintings and Sculptures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Guillaumin’s long career unfolded at the heart of Impressionism. He worked and exhibited alongside the major players of the original group and allied himself with the young innovators; during his life he achieved critical acclaim and was awarded public honors. Guillaumin participated in all but two of the eight Impressionist Exhibitions, showing in 1874, 1877, 1881, 1882, 1884, and 1886. Like Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley, Guillaumin was a classic Impressionist painter. Their theories and practice revolved around the observation of air and light, which they captured in spontaneous looking compositions using bright unmixed colors and an application of visible feathery brushstrokes. As an Impressionist interested in the visual effects of air and light, nature was Guillaumin’s primary subject, and he left Paris as often as he could to paint outdoors and in the country. Like Pissarro, Guillaumin was drawn to rural landscapes, where farm houses, tended fields, and bountiful harvests spoke of the age-old rhythms of work and life on the land.

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