The Bowes Museum hosts major French Impressionist exhibition

The Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham, has opened the exhibition ‘Impressions of Light: Masterpieces from MuMa – Le Havre and The Bowes Museum’. The showcase features approximately 60 works from the Musée d’Art Moderne André Malraux (MuMa) in Le Havre, marking the first time many of these Impressionist masterpieces have been displayed in the United Kingdom.

A central highlight of the exhibition is Claude Monet’s ‘Fécamp, Seaside’, a painting the museum had sought to borrow for 22 years. The collection includes works by prominent artists such as Eugène Boudin, Gustave Courbet, Camille Pissarro, Raoul Dufy, and Jean-Francis Auburtin, tracing the evolution of landscape painting from pre-impressionism to post-impressionism.

The exhibition serves as a tribute to Josephine Bowes, a French painter and collector who, alongside her husband John Bowes, built the museum’s collection with a significant focus on French art. The collaboration between the two institutions was a multi-year effort, involving two and a half years of preparation and nearly a year of international transport and documentation procedures. The exhibition is scheduled to run until March 14, 2027.