Rediscovering Great Artists

The Kimbell’s exhibition of the paintings of Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (1755–1842), one of the foremost female painters of all time, was the first retrospective ever devoted to her art. Marking the 10th anniversary of the museum, the exhibition featured the artist’s early self-portrait—an early purchase by the Kimbell’s founders.

During the height of Impressionism in the 1870s and 1880s, Gustave Caillebotte produced some of the movement’s most daring paintings. Experimenting with radical points of view and audacious perspective, he created images of modern life that are unforgettable. The painter’s distinctive genius is revealed by such masterworks as Paris Street, Rainy Day (Art Institute of Chicago), Floor Scrapers (Musée d’Orsay), and two versions of the Pont de l’Europe (Association des amis du Petit Palais, Geneva, and Kimbell Art Museum), along with paintings from museums and private collections throughout the world. Together, they will present to American audiences for the first time in a generation the full range of Caillebotte’s extraordinary vision.

This exhibition marks the first celebration of their art in North America since 1947, when the Toledo Museum of Art mounted a small exhibition of their paintings. In fact, it is only the second exhibition held anywhere in the world, at any time, to focus on the brothers’ full production—with altarpieces, portraits, and mythologies, in addition to those scenes of beggars and peasants for which the brothers are now most famous.