‘Americani a Firenze. Sargent e gli impressionisti del Nuovo Mondo’
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence
3rd March – 15th July 2012
‘Americans in Florence – Sargent and the American Impressionists’ is another exhibition for Florence on the 500th anniversary of the death of Amerigo Vespucci – the other one being the Native American art show at Palazzo Pitti.
The exhibition focuses on the binding ties between the Old and the New World, nowhere stronger than with the American painters who embraced Impressionism on the cusp of the 19th and 20th centuries, many of whom spent a fair amount of time in Italy and Florence.
To quote directly from the official brochure:
Visitors will be able to study the work of artists who, while not explicitly subscribing to the Impressionist movement, played a crucial role in forming the new generations of American painters-men like William Morris Hunt, John La Farge and Thomas Eakins. These will be followed by the great forerunners, artists such as John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, who could boast of strong cosmopolitan leanings. The main part of the exhibition will consist of work by artists of remarkable quality who spent time in Florence.