Young Girl at a Window by Mary Cassatt, ca 1883–1884 (Image courtesy National Gallery of Art/Open Access)
Please Note: The tour departs by motorcoach from downtown Washington, DC with a designated secondary pick-up outside the city. Content delivered by the study leader on the way to the destination, after the secondary pick-up, is an integral part of the study tour experience. Meeting the group once the tour is en route is discouraged.
Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required for participation on all tours; additionally, current CDC and Smithsonian COVID-19 guidelines (at the time of the tour) will be followed, including but not limited to masks on the bus and indoors.
Rediscover late 19th- and early 20th-century painters who left the United States as expatriates and returned to shape the course of American art. In Paris, they trained under the influence of the École des Beaux-Arts and studied the “old master” works at the Louvre but then went beyond traditional practices to experiment with new ideas and techniques. Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France examines the rich variety and complexity of American painting in the advent of modernism, as French avant-garde philosophies and styles melded with American individualism.
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibition assembles combinations of more than 100 paintings by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Elizabeth Nourse, Cecilia Beaux, and many others. A guided tour of the exhibit is the centerpiece of a day that also includes time to enjoy the museum’s extensive holdings—including the dazzling Fabergé collection—and lunch in Marble Hall.
Art historian Ursula Rehn Wolfman is the tour leader.
World Art History Certificate elective: Earn 1/2 credit*
Additional Opportunity: If you enjoy James Abbott McNeill Whistler as an artist, check out an October 5 online lecture called Whistler: Departing from Tradition in Making Art.
General Information
- Registration for this tour will end by 2 p.m. ET on Friday, July 8 , 2022.
- The tour meets at and leaves by bus from the Holiday Inn Capitol, 550 C St., SW (corner of 6th and C Sts., SW), with a pickup stop at the Horner Road commuter lot bus shelter, I-95, Exit 158B, at about 8:30 a.m.
- Tour includes lunch.
- For additional tour information:
*Enrolled participants in the World Art History Certificate Program receive 1/2 elective credit. Not yet enrolled? Learn about the program, its benefits, and how to register here.
