One of the most enduring—yet complex and even contradictory—styles of art ever produced in this country, American Impressionism captured and held public attention for more than a century. The style was appreciated for its fairy tale views of an elegant American yesteryear, while at the same time carrying the imprimatur of Paris and reflecting the origins of modernism. Why should an artistic movement based, in large part, on the enterprise of capturing momentary visual events in paint linger so long on American palettes? This lecture explores the conditions that made the style so popular in the United States, revealing a nuanced history of art interchange in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, far more complicated than the straightforward imitation of a foreign style.

About the instructor: Dr. Amanda C. Burdan

Amanda C. Burdan is curator at the Brandywine River Museum of Art and has organized many exhibitions on the fine and decorative arts of the United States. She joined the curatorial staff of the Brandywine River Museum of Art in 2012, and previously worked in the curatorial departments at the Florence Griswold Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art. She earned her master’s degree and Ph.D. at Brown University. Her next exhibition, “America’s Impressionism: Echoes of a Revolution” opens at the Brandywine on October 9, 2021.