This exhibition celebrates avant-garde artists–—including the legendary Henri Toulouse-Lautrec—who were living and working at the center of the artistic and cultural scene of Paris at the turn of the last century. Through a variety of paintings and other materials, visitors will explore the nightlife of cabaret theaters, elaborate circus performances, and intimate café concerts that helped to define Paris as an iconic modern city.

Drawn from prestigious private collections, the artworks in this exhibition were made by a generation of artists who battled against the formality of Academic art standards, rebelling against the styles of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism espoused by artists like Georges Seurat, Paul Gaugin, and Vincent Van Gogh. In addition to paintings by Henri Tolouse-Lautrec, Mary Cassat, Paul Heleu, Juan Gris, and Pierre Bonnard, special attention is given to small groups of artists –the Nauralists, the Symbolists, the Incohérents, and the Nabis—who offered new visions for life and society during this era that has been popularly coined the fin de siècle.

The exhibition includes over 185 objects, ranging from paintings, watercolors, and drawings, to rare cabaret shadow puppets, illustrated theater programs, and archive and ephemera materials from Parisian theaters, circuses, and concerts.

This exhibition is organized and circulated by Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia.

Lead sponsor

George and Irene Drews and the Thelma B. and Thomas P. Hart Foundation

Sponsor

Goldcorp, US

Supporting sponsors

Earl and Wanda Casazza, Casazza SLV, LLC, and Catherine and John Farahi/Atlantis Casino Resort Spa

 

His Excellency Francois Delattre, Ambassador of France to the United States of America, is Honorary Patron of the exhibition.

This feature exhibition celebrates the iconic landscape paintings of Phyllis Shafer, while also carefully examining her early artistic influences shaped by her time spent in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area. The title of the exhibition, “I only went out for a walk…” is inspired by a phrase written by nineteenth century naturalist and conservationist John Muir, and links to Shafer’s work as a plein air painter who frequently finds inspiration in the Sierra Nevada.

The largest presentation of her work to date, the exhibition will include nearly 100 paintings, gouaches, and drawings dating from the 1980s to present. In addition, visitors will encounter displays Shafer’s working tools such as brushes, paints, sketchbooks, notebooks and unfinished drawings.

A fully-illustrated book documenting Shafer’s work from the 1980s to the present accompanies the exhibition. Interview by Ann M. Wolfe, Senior Curator | Deputy Director, 112 pages, hard cover, $40 per copy. Copies available for purchase in the Museum Store or call 775.398.7206.

Major sponsor

The Phil and Jennifer Satre Family Fund of the Community Foundation of Western Nevada

Additional sponsors

Mimi Ellis Hogan, The Law Office of Tammy M. Riggs, P.L.L.C., Cheryl Sedestrom, and the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency