THE MUSEE D’ORSAY

The Musée d’Orsay, one of Paris most kid friendly art museum,  will be partially closed for renovations till 2011. Instead of going into storage, the Musée d’Orsay is organizing a worldwide tour of  its masterpieces. Lucky us, two exhibits of 100 paintings each will be exhibited at the San Francisco de Young Museum after the King Tut exhibition leaves. If you have never been to Paris or to the Musee d’Orsay, this is your chance to admire great paintings.

For those who do not know it, the Musée d’Orsay was built in an old railway station and therefore presents an unique design and feeling. I am curious to see what the end result will look like. It hosts a lot of Impressionist Art and it is definitely one of my favorite museums.

The first exhibition called the Birth of Impressionism, Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay will run from May 22, 2010 to September 6, 2010. .

The Second exhibition called Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond: Post-Impressionist: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay will run from September 25, 2010 through January 18, 2011

Tickets will go on sale on March 15, 2010

The de Young website lists the list of the main paintings for the exhibitions and it is pretty exciting!

First exhibition

The Fife Player by Edouard Manet (1866)
Family Reunion by Frédéric Bazille (1867)
Arrangement in Gray and Black No. 1 or Portrait of the Artist’s Mother by James McNeil Whistler (1871)
The Birth of Venus by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1879)
The Cradle by Berthe Morisot (1872)
Saint-Lazare Station by Claude Monet (1877)
The Swing by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1876)
Rue Montorgueil, Paris. Festival of June 30, 1878 by Claude Monet
Racehorses Before the Stands by Edgar Degas (1866-1868)
The Dancing Lesson by Edgar Degas (1873-1876)
Portraits at the Stock Exchange by Edgar Degas (1878-1879)

Second exhibition

A Dance in the Country by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1883)
The Circus by George Seurat (1891)
Self Portrait by Vincent van Gogh (1887)
Starry Night over the Rhone by Vincent van Gogh (1888)
The Artist’s Bedroom at Arles by Vincent van Gogh (1889)
Portrait of the Artist with the Yellow Christ by Paul Gauguin (1889)
Tahitian Women, On the Beach by Paul Gauguin (1891)
Still Life with Onions by Paul Cézanne (1895)
The Snake Charmer by Henri Rousseau (1907)

THE PICASSO MUSEUM

Another Parisian museum is getting a much needed renovation: the Picasso Museum. I visited it two years ago and found it dull. It is hosted in a former XVIIth century mansion and nothing was being presented in a very appealing way. I was glad I did not bring my children with me at that time. I would have had a hard time making them excited by the museum. I am a Picasso fan and I had a hard time finishing the visit, That’s when you realize that presentation and surroundings matter too (as well as air conditioning in August!) . Whoever visited the beautiful Picasso Museum in Barcelona (that my children loved) and can compare both, know what I mean. The new improved Picasso Museum will open its doors on February 2012. During this time, the art will be put on storage and some of it will be restored. I wished they would have arranged a traveling exhibition but for some reasons, it did not happen.I read on the French press that they need to do the inventory and catalogue the pieces (only a small part of the Picasso legacy is presented at all time).