About

One of the leading encyclopedic museums in the country, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (NAMA) is recognized for its European collections. In 2015, Kansas City collectors Henry and Marion Bloch expanded NAMA’s already significant holdings by donating their collection of twenty-nine Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces. This gift transformed the museum by broadening the scope of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century art available to our visitors, bringing NAMA’s French collection to a total of 110 French paintings and pastels dating between 1600 and 1945. Collection highlights include masterworks by Nicolas Poussin, François Boucher, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Jean-François Millet, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, and Vincent van Gogh, among others. While the majority of the museum’s French works are on display for local visitors, this online collection catalogue brings the entire corpus of French paintings and pastels to visitors and scholars worldwide. In this definitive scholarly resource, noted specialists and museum staff present in-depth research and discussion about each painting and pastel.

This custom online catalogue enables a deeper exploration of these artworks, with zoomable high-resolution photography, comparative figures, and fully searchable text. The complete catalogue can be downloaded for free in multiple formats, as can the object data and main images.

For the best experience, the catalogue should be viewed in the most recent versions of Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome. If you are experiencing issues with images not appearing as expected, try clearing your cookies or opening the URL in an incognito window.

The French paintings catalogue is generously supported by The Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation, The National Endowment for the Humanities (http://www.neh.gov), Adelaide Cobb Ward in honor of Donald J. Hall’s retirement, The Mellon Endowment for Scientific Research, The National Endowment for the Arts (https://www.arts.gov), The James Sight Fund, and The Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

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Land Acknowledgement

While the digital catalogue lives in the virtual realm, the museum is at the address of 4525 Oak Street, which is on the homelands of Native American peoples, at the juncture of the Missouri and Kansas Rivers. In recent years, these nations have included the Missouria, Oto, Kansa, Osage, Shawnee, and Delaware. We pay respects to all Indigenous peoples—past, present, and future—for their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Native American diaspora. Learn more about our commitments to better represent, elevate, and support Indigenous cultures and people on our website.

Citation Information

Chicago

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, ed. French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2021), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.

MLA

Marcereau DeGalan, Aimee, editor. French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2021. doi: 10.37764/78973

Permanent URL

https://doi.org/10.37764/78973

Contact

Research is always ongoing. We are open to learning more about our collection. Do you have a question or comment? Have you found inaccurate or problematic information? Please tell us more!

Please direct questions and comments to FrenchPaintings[at]nelson-atkins.org

Digital Catalogue Updates

French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945 is a serial publication, and more research and entries will be regularly added. Therefore, the data is subject to change. Object information (such as artist attribution, title, or date) may change as new research is conducted. However, essays will remain constant. They are versioned and citable with assurances of a permanent address to the information referenced.

Any revisions or corrections made to this publication after the first edition date will be listed here. For a detailed list of each catalogue entry and the date it was published, see Publication Installments.

DOWNLOADS

Complete Catalogue

PDF (1.45 GiB)

COPYRIGHT

© 2021–2024 The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.

This data is not certified or warrantied by the curatorial staff, and you use it at your own risk.

Overview of image use by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for this publication

This digital publication platform provides unique opportunities for researching the French paintings collection at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The museum respects copyright and the interests of artists in protecting their works. The images are intended to support the scholarship on this platform; in several cases, they are shown at a relatively small size, enabling the museum to rely on a fair use defense with respect to such images and without which publication of this educational resource would not have been possible. The Nelson-Atkins believes that this application of the fair use exception with respect to the use of images on the platform is in keeping with the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts issued by the College Art Association (http://www.collegeart.org/programs/caa-fair-use/best-practices), the Guidelines for the Use of Copyrighted Materials and Works of Art by Art Museums issued by the Association of Art Museum Directors https://aamd.org/sites/default/files/document/Guidelines for the Use of Copyrighted Materials.pdf, and developing case law.

Title: French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art / Aimee Marcereau DeGalan

Description: Kansas City : Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, [2021]| ©2021–2024 | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: ISBN 978-0-9970446-3-8 (print) | ISBN 978-0-9970446-2-1 (ebook) | doi: 10.37764/78973

Subjects: LCSH: Painting, French – Catalogs | Pastel drawing, French – Catalogs | Art, European – Catalogs | Art – Missouri – Kansas City – Catalogs | Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art – Catalogs

This publication was created using Quire™, a multiplatform publishing tool owned by the J. Paul Getty Trust, but revised with the NAMA theme developed by Michael Taggart and Stephanie Alger. https://github.com/Nelson-Atkins-Museum/NAMA-Quire-Theme

Cover: Edgar Degas, Rehearsal of the Ballet, ca. 1876, gouache and pastel over monotype on laid paper, plate: 22 1/4 x 27 1/2 in. (56.5 x 70 cm), sheet (irregular): 23 13/16 x 29 3/16 in. (60.5 x 74.2 cm), Purchase: the Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation Acquisition Fund, F73-30 (detail) [www.nelson-atkins.org/fpc/impressionism/614]

doi: 10.37764/78973.2.1020