Image: Water Lilies (detail), 1908, Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), oil on canvas, 31 1/2 in. diam. Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, 1981.128. Image courtesy Dallas Museum of Art
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond will present ‘The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse from the Dallas Museum of Art’ from November 14, 2026, through April 4, 2027. The exhibition will be installed in the museum’s Altria Group Gallery and NewMarket Gallery and will trace Impressionism from its emergence in 1874 through its influence on early 20th-century modern art.
Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, the exhibition will examine the independent artist collective’s challenge to established artistic conventions. Its focus extends beyond the movement’s familiar visual language of light and color to the broader changes Impressionist artists introduced in their subjects, working methods and approaches to exhibition-making.
Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot are identified among the movement’s core figures. According to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, their innovations established a foundation against which later avant-garde artists responded, including Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse. The exhibition presents Impressionism as both a break with academic tradition and a point of departure for successive developments in modern art.
A featured work is Claude Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ from 1908, an oil on canvas measuring 31½ inches in diameter. The painting belongs to the Dallas Museum of Art and was given by the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, in 1981. The work exemplifies the exhibition’s connection to the Dallas collection while placing Monet’s mature practice within the longer history of the movement’s artistic impact.
Dr. Nicole R. Myers, chief curatorial and research officer and The Barbara Thomas Lemmon Senior Curator of European Art at the Dallas Museum of Art, curated the exhibition. VMFA’s coordinating curators are Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and head of the Department of European Art, and Dr. Theresa A. Cunningham, associate curator of European Art and the Mellon Collections.
The presentation will open with a members-only preview on November 12, followed by a curator’s opening talk, ‘That 1870s Show: The Impressionist Revolution,’ that evening at 6 p.m. Public tickets go on sale September 14, 2026; member presale began August 17. Admission is $20 for adults, $16 for seniors and groups, and $10 for youth and students, while children six and under and VMFA members enter free. The exhibition remains on view through April 4, 2027.
