Impressionist paintings by Monet and Renoir in NGV show

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is sending to Melbourne more than 100 artworks from its collection of French Impressionists.

‘Audiences will discover the truly revolutionary ­origins of this important moment in modern art history,’ says NGV director Tony Ellwood. Picture Tim Carrafa

Canny American art collectors knew what they were doing when they bought up paintings by Monet, Renoir and others in the late 19th century — there are more pictures by the major French Impressionists in the US than there are in France.

Collectors in Boston left many of their pictures to the city’s ­Museum of Fine Arts, which in turn is shipping an exhibition of its treasures to Melbourne.

The National Gallery of Victoria on Monday announced the exhibition, French Impressionism, which will include more than 100 paintings and other works from the Boston museum.

Opening in June, the exhibition will be the first time the MFA has sent such a large selection of its works to Australia.

“This exhibition will give audiences the extraordinary opportunity to study more than 100 masterworks up close, including Monet’s radiant scenes of the French countryside, and to discover the truly revolutionary ­origins of this important moment in modern art history,” NGV ­director Tony Ellwood said.

Visitors will see paintings by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cezanne and others.

The large selection of Monet pictures will show the archetypal Impressionist in pastoral mode, with fields of poppies and poplars, coastal scenes and waterlilies and haystacks at his beloved Giverny.

Boston MFA director Matthew Teitelbaum said his ­museum, founded in 1870, was shaped by collectors who were buying the contemporary art of the day, especially the Impressionists. “They gravitated very much to Monet, Gauguin, Renoir and other artists,” he said.

“It was partly an intellectual pursuit, but it was also a lifestyle pursuit. It was how these paintings looked and how they made you feel that became appealing.”

The Boston collection was shaped by the collectors’ taste, he said. They were largely interested in Impressionist artists up to Cezanne, not so much in later developments by Picasso and Matisse.

French Impressionism will run from June 4 to October 3 as part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.

The NGV in April will open an exhibition of Australian Impressionists, She-Oak and Sunlight, in which names like Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder will be seen alongside women artists Iso Rae, May Vale, Jane Price and Ina Gregory.