NEW PARIS – FROM MONET TO MORISOT at Kunst-Museum Den Haag

Berthe Morisot, Au bois, 1867, pencil and watercolour on paper (detail). Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

14th February – 9th June.

The Kunstmuseum Den Haag presents a major exhibition about the social upheavals in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth century. When Impressionism was in its infancy, the French capital underwent a radical process of gentrification, with unprecedented consequences for rich and poor alike. A transformation that has echoes in contemporary urban redevelopment. New Paris: From Monet to Morisot shows the two faces of the City of Light: the one we cherish and the one we would rather forget.


In 1867, Claude Monet painted three views of Paris from the balcony of the Louvre, literally turning his back on the famous classical artworks in the museum to record the here and now of life on the street. In this radical break with tradition at a time when Paris was in flux, Monet chose to paint the life he saw at his feet. This was a ‘liveable’ city with growing pains that drove those with the least to the fringes of society. The three paintings are reunited this spring at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in a major Impressionist exhibition, New Paris: From Monet to Morisot, focusing on images of Paris in transition. In addition to works by Monet, the exhibition, organised in partnership with the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Oberlin, Ohio, features 65 works by Frédéric Bazille, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Armand Guillaumin, Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot and Pierre-Auguste Renoir from collections all over the world. These Impressionist works are complemented by prints by Honoré Daumier and photographs by the inventor, journalist and balloonist Félix Nadar.