Release Date: February 26, 2008

National Gallery of Art Offers Exciting Programs Related to Fontainebleau Exhibition
March 2 – June 8, 2008

Washington, DC—The National Gallery of Art will offer a diverse program of lectures, films, concerts, plays, and children’s activities related to the exhibition In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet, on view March 2 through June 8, 2008, in the East Building. The Forest of Fontainebleau, located about 35 miles southeast of Paris, served as a sanctuary and subject for many artists attracted to its complex topography and quaint villages, including plein-air painters Camille Corot and Claude Monet, and early landscape photographers Gustave Le Gray and Eugène Cuvelier. Some 100 paintings, pastels, and photographs, as well as tourist ephemera and painting and photographic equipment illustrate an artistic movement that gave rise to the "Barbizon School" and laid the groundwork for impressionism.

All programs are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted. For more information, call (202) 737-4215, visit the Web site at www.nga.gov, or inquire at the Information Desks.

Opening Day Lecture

March 2, East Building Auditorium, 2:00 p.m.
In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet
Kimberly Jones, associate curator, French paintings and Sarah Kennel, assistant curator, photographs, National Gallery of Art

Gallery Talks
Meet at the East Building Information Desk

In the Forest of Fontainebleau
March 13, 18, 19, 25 and 26; April 2, 8, 10, 12, 15 and 17 at 1:00 p.m.

Educator and Curator Series:
In the Forest of Fontainebleau
April 14, 16, 18, 21 at 12:00PM; April 23 at 2:00PM
Gallery lecturer Diane Arkin and Sarah Kennel

Public Symposium
East Building Auditorium

Keynote Address
May 2, 3:30 p.m.
Towards Impressionism? Barbizon in Context
John House, Walter H. Annenberg Professor, Courtauld Institute of Art

Public Symposium
May 3, 12:30-5:00 p.m.
En Plein-Air: Representing Landscape in 19th Century France and Britain
Illustrated lectures by Rene Boitelle, Anthea Callen, Michael Clarke, Dominique de Font-Réaulx, Duncan Forbes, and Christopher Otter

Anatomy of Art: Photography in the 19th-Century Series

In order to increase a 21st-century viewer’s understanding and enjoyment of 19th-century photographs, the department of adult programs has coordinated gallery talks, lectures, and a demonstration focused on the equipment and processes employed by early photographic artists. Photographs may be viewed in the exhibitions: Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860 and In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet.

Gallery Talks
Prints from Paper Negatives: Processes and Preservation
Connie McCabe, senior photographs conservator, National Gallery of Art
May 1, 2 p.m.
Meet at the entrance to Impressed by Light

Why Fontainebleau?
Russell Lord, independent scholar
May 16, 17, and 18, noon
Meet at East Building Art Information Desk

Picturing Fontainebleau
Russell Lord, independent scholar
May 16 and 17, 2 p.m.; May 18, 3 p.m.
Meet at East Building Art Information Desk

Cliché verre: Drawing and Photography
Kimberly Schenck, head of paper conservation, National Gallery of Art
June 6, 2 p.m.
Meet at East Building Art Information Desk

Demonstration
A ‘View Camera’ and the Images It Produces
Adam Davies, photographer
June 8, 11, 12, 13, and 14, 3 p.m.

Lectures
A History of the Camera in the 19th Century
Jack Wilgus, Maryland Institute College of Art
May 15 and 16, 1 p.m.
West Building Lecture Hall

Calotype Photography
Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman, photographic process historians
May 23, noon
East Building Auditorium

The Collodion Process
Mark Osterman and France Scully Osterman, photographic process historians
May 24, noon
East Building Auditorium

The Conservation and Preservation of 19th-Century Photographic Materials
Adrienne Lundgren, senior photographic conservator, Library of Congress
June 3, 2 p.m.
East Building Auditorium

Concerts

March 9
Octuor de France
Music by Beethoven and Ravel
West Garden Court, 6:30 p.m.

March 16
Parisii Quartet
With baritone Jerome Correas and pianist Emmanuel Strosser
Music of Faureé, Hahn, and Stravinsky
West Garden Court, 6:30 p.m.

March 30
Violinist Elina Vähälä and pianist Mika Rännäli
Music by Copland, Debussy, Faureé, and Stravinsky
West Garden Court, 6:30 p.m.

April 13PM
Kate Hearden, soprano; Marcio Botelho, cellist
Music by Chausson, Debussy, Franck, and Massenet
East Building Auditorium, 6:30 p.m.

May 11 PM
Ryan Brown and members of Opera Lafayette
Early nineteenth-century French chamber music on period instruments
West Garden Court, 6:30 p.m.

Family Weekend

Weekend in the Forest of Fontainebleau
April 19, 10:00–5:00 p.m.; April 20, 11:00–6:00 p.m.
East Building Mezzanine and Reception Room
Ages 3 and up; no registration required
For more information, call (202) 789-3030
Children and adults can tour the exhibition using family activity booklets, enjoy musical performances and films, and create their own forest scenes to take home

Children’s Film

Claude Monet: Shadow and Light
April 19, 20 at noon, 1:30 p.m., 3:00 p.m.
East Building Small Auditorium
Ages 7 and up
In this live-action drama set in the summer of 1869, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir experiment with open-air painting and befriend a young boy with budding talent. (2000, 55 min.).

J. Carter Brown Memorial Evening with Educators

East Building
April 9, 4:00 p.m.–7:30 p.m.
Venture into the Forest of Fontainebleau and the artists' colony at Barbizon, the legendary village outside Paris that is now synonymous with mid-19th-century French landscape painting. From the 1820s through the 1870s, painters and photographers were drawn to this picturesque site to work outdoors in pursuit of naturalistic landscape effects not easily obtained in the studio. Enjoy the exhibition and share refreshments and conversation with colleagues in this after-hours program cosponsored by The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Fee: $20

Gallery Shop

During the exhibition, visitors to the East Building Shop (located on the concourse level) will be able to choose from a broad selection of books and postcard reproductions as well as related merchandise such as artist’s supplies and a poster of Augustin Enfantin’s An Artist Painting in the Forest of Fontainebleau (c. 1825).

Exhibition Catalogue

The catalogue In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet is the first English-language publication to consider the place of photography within the history of the evolution of landscape painting from the plein-air practices of Corot to the impressionist endeavors of Monet. Published by the National Gallery of Art in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, the 224-page catalogue is edited by Jones with essays by Kennel; Helga Aurisch, associate curator of European Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Simon Kelly, associate curator of European paintings and sculpture, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and includes 179 color illustrations. The catalogue is currently available from the Gallery Shops for $60 (hardcover) and $40 (softcover). To order, call (800) 697-9350 or (202) 842-6002; fax (202) 789-3047; or e-mail [email protected].

Exhibition Organization and Support

In the Forest of Fontainebleau is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

The exhibition is made possible by The Florence Gould Foundation.

The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.