Guided tours of the exhibition “Eugène Boudin. Father of Impressionism” at the Musée Marmottan-Monet

Under the curatorship of art historian Laurent Manœuvre, the Musée Marmottan Monet invites visitors to rediscover the work of Eugène Boudin through a selection of 80 paintings. The majority of these works come from the private collection of Yann Guyonvarc'h, a passionate collector of the artist, and have never been exhibited before. The remainder are from major institutions (the Musée Marmottan Monet itself, the Beaux-Arts d'Agen, and the Musée d'Art Moderne André Malraux in Le Havre).

Through a concise presentation divided into eight chapters, the public is invited to follow the evolution of the painter's career, from his early landscapes of Normandy to his seascapes in the South of France and Venice, by way of Brittany, Bordeaux, and Belgium.

Bold colors, inspired by sunlight, burst forth, along with endless seascapes where the skies become the main protagonists, leading Charles Baudelaire and Camille Corot to declare that no one had ever painted clouds as well as Boudin. This is also why Claude Monet wrote, at the end of his life, that he owed "everything to Boudin," the latter having paved the way for plein air painting and the rendering of atmospheric effects; what would come to be known as "Impressionism."

To learn more about the life and work of this great French painter, still too little known despite his contribution to the history of art in France, please feel free to contact me to arrange a guided tour at your convenience.