Come on down!

American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens today in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The Norton Museum of Art hosts our traveling show through January 20, 2002. American Impressionism features fifty-two luminous works by turn-of-the century painters who often worked outdoors to capture brilliant effects of light and color. Childe Hassam's Maréchal Niel Roses is a delightful inclusion!

The brilliant yellow roses for which this work is titled were named after the secretary of war to Napoleon III. The specific choice of this rose may relate to Hassam's battle for beauty and aestheticism in art as well as life. The elaborate Renaissance-revival frame from the 1920s was added at a later date.

Source: Joann Moser. American Impressionism: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum (exhibition text, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1999).

Pictured: Childe Hassam, 1859–1935, Maréchal Niel Roses, 1919, oil, 26 1/2 x 32 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly.