Louvre Abu Dhabi to host Impressionist exhibition, featuring more than 150 masterpieces

Impressionism: Pathways to Modernity, organised in partnership with Musee d'Orsay, will open on October 12

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Louvre Abu Dhabi will host one of the most significant Impressionist exhibitions ever to be held outside of France, according to its announcement.

Impressionism: Pathways to Modernity, which is being held in partnership with Paris's Musee d'Orsay, will run from October 12 to February 5, 2023, with more than 150 masterpieces on display at the capital's landmark art museum.

Etchings, costumes, film and photography will also be displayed, exploring why Impressionism was considered controversial in the 19th century and how it broke ground for future artistic movements.

Works by Manet, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Cezanne will form part of the exhibition, alongside many more pioneering artists.

"Born at a time of profound social, political, and cultural upheaval, Impressionism was more than mere artistic rebellion," reads Louvre Abu Dhabi's description of the exhibition.

"It saw some of history’s bravest and most visionary painters embrace and extoll new ways of seeing, making art, and living. They celebrated this thrilling new reality, representing truthful observations of nature and modern life.

"The result was a fundamentally new and different kind of art, unburdened by artistic and academic convention or tradition, whose radicalism, honesty, and bravery continues to inspire artists to this day."

It comes as part of four major international exhibitions held each year at Abu Dhabi's universal museum that explore themes common to all humanity.

Stories of Paper at Louvre Abu Dhabi

Currently on show is Stories of Paper, which runs until July 24. The exhibition hones in on a single material, with more than 100 paper-based objects from across the globe on display. Together, they trace two millennia of intellectual, scientific and cultural exchange. The works are sourced from 16 museums, cultural institutions and private collections.

Works include Katsushika Hokusai’s renowned The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of Louvre Abu Dhabi’s latest acquisitions and on display at the museum for the first time, as well as a 15th-century Quran from Tunisia, scribed with silver ink on purple-dyed pages.

The exhibition is curated by the Musee du Louvre’s Xavier Salmon, general curator and director of the Department of Drawings and Prints, and Victor Hundsbuckler, curator at the Department of Drawings and Prints, with the support of Souraya Noujaim, director of Scientific, Curatorial and Collections Management at Louvre Abu Dhabi.

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