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Contact: Sandra Betner Public Relations

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Impressionism…

Three museums, three exhibitions

May 1, 2008, CT --- This spring, visit three museums along the Connecticut Art Trail for three dazzling exhibitions of Impressionism.

Through May 11, 2008, the “Impressionists by the Sea” international loan exhibition is on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford following its viewing at the Royal Academy of Arts in London and The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. The Wadsworth Atheneum is the final venue for this exhibition of paintings which depicts the transformation of the rugged Normandy and Brittany coasts by French nineteenth-century artists including Monet, Renoir and Manet. With paintings dating from the 1850's through the 1890's, the exhibition of fifty masterworks highlights the radical modernity of Monet, Renoir and others compared to their predecessors and contemporaries allied with the Paris Salon.

A special exhibition fee of $10 is applied to general museum admission. For more information, visit www.wadsworthatheneum.org. To order tickets, call (877) 600-MAIN or order online at www.museumtix.com/. Lodging packages starting at $189/night are available which include admission to “Impressionists by the Sea”; visit arttrail.org/packages.

Through June 29, 2008, The New Britain Museum of American Art presents an exhibition featuring sixty works of California Impressionist art, “All Things Bright and Beautiful: California Impressionist Paintings from the Irvine Museum.” The exhibition celebrates Impressionistic landscape painting through intricate depictions of the immaculate California countryside, pre-industrialization. Initiated in the 1890's by a group of spiritually-aware artists who were greatly influenced by Transcendentalism, the paintings are rich with beauty and historical significance, and are deeply rooted in nature. The exhibition is part of a nationwide tour that includes The National Academy Museum in New York, The Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago, The Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, and the Irvine Museum in California. Entry to “All Things Bright and Beautiful” is included with museum admission. For more information, visit www.nbmaa.org.

The Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme is the first venue for “Impressionist Giverny: American Painters in France, 1885-1915”, an exhibition of over fifty oil paintings featuring Impressionist masterworks by American expatriate artists who worked in this small French village. The exhibition will be on view May 3 through July 27, 2008. Attracted by Impressionist master Claude Monet, who settled in Giverny in 1883, an international community of artists flocked there from the late-1880's through World War I. The exhibition includes work by John Leslie Breck, Theodore Robinson, Willard Metcalf, Louis Paul Dessar, Frederick Carl Frieseke and Mary MacMonnies. By establishing a community distinct from the older colonies of Barbizon or Pont Aven, these American artists created their own unique vision of the French landscape.

The Florence Griswold Museum is especially suited to present this international exhibition, as many of the American artists who worked in Giverny later came to Old Lyme as part of the artists' colony that thrived at Florence Griswold's boardinghouse. These similarities forever linked the two destinations in art history, and Old Lyme became known as the “American Giverny” and the Florence Griswold House became known as the “home of American Impressionism.” Entry to “Impressionist Giverny: American Painters in France, 1885-1915” is $2 in addition to museum admission. For more information, visit www.florencegriswold.org

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The Connecticut Art Trail offers fifteen world-class museums and historic sites as the centerpiece of vacation experiences, from bucolic farms, art studios and former artists' boarding houses to grand and modern art museums in vibrant downtowns. Discover diverse, quality collections rich in history and heritage, including European masterpieces, American Impressionism, ancient art and contemporary culture…all within Connecticut's borders.

Visit the website for a detailed description of each museum, Trail Getaways, Lodging Packages and recommended lodging, dining and area attractions near each museum.

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