150 years of Impressionism celebrated, and Warhol royal prints, at Dutch museums

On April 15, 1874, a group of young artists put their paintings on display in Paris – and Impressionism was born. Their move was in protest against the strict admission rules of the country’s official salons, where their style was not wanted. The personal impressions, loose brushstrokes, strong colours and themes of everyday life were radical at the time. And yet their approach was one that, rather fittingly, left an impression on the art world. Now, 150 years later, Dutch museums are celebrating the anniversary of Impressionism with around 140 landmark works on display in the exhibition “Vive l’impressionnisme!” (Long live Impressionism) at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum. Starting on October 11, top pieces by French Impressionists from Dutch collections will be on display there, including works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. Ten museums and seven private collections are taking part in the exhibition. “Impressionism was a revolution and a shock,” says Emilie Gordenker, the director of the Van Gogh Museum. “Thanks to a few visionaries like the art dealer Theo van Gogh, this art also made it to the Netherlands in the end.” The Amsterdam exhibition shows how great the contrast was with the art that was prevalent at the time and how great the outrage. At the end of the 19th century, the Netherlands was a very conservative place, and one where the naturalistic style with gloomy brown tones and dramatic landscapes prevailed – quite unlike the light-filled, radiant paintings of the Impressionists. Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) also only changed his style after moving to Paris in 1886 and seeing the Impressionist paintings of his colleagues. And yet it took more than 40 years before Impressionism was embraced in his homeland, said curator Fleur Roos Rosa de Carvalho. “They thought the pictures were unfinished. The bright colours and the lack of solid forms shocked people.” Running until January 2025, the exhibition features a wide range of Impressionist art: landscapes by Monet, drawings by Degas, paintings by Renoir, sculptures by Rodin. Meanwhile, another Dutch museum is dusting off a rare collection of prints by Andy Warhol of female royalty, made shortly before the pop art icon’s death 37 years ago. Entitled “Royal Edition”, the exhibition at the stately Het Loo Palace in Apeldoorn will feature 16 prints that Warhol made of reigning queens. Among the portraits are also that of the former Dutch queen, now Princess Beatrix, who officially opened the show in the central Dutch city on October 10. “Today, the Paleis Het Loo is the only museum in Europe to hold all 16 prints of Warhol’s diamond dusted ‘Royal Edition’ in its collection,” the museum’s curator Hanna Klarenbeek says. Het Loo had “one of the few complete museum collections worldwide, having bought the series in 1986 just one year after its creation”, she said. Apart from Beatrix, the series also features prints of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and Queen Ntombi Tfwala of eSwatini, formerly Swaziland. “These four were the only reigning queens at the time,” the museum said. Only at the end of his life did Warhol have the idea to portray the four queens. The artist produced two editions of the reigning queens series: a normal edition of 40 copies and this ‘Royal Edition’ of “diamond dusted” copies. The “diamond dusted” prints are unique because Warhol accentuated their contour lines with finely ground pieces of glass to make the portraits glitter, the museum said. Warhol made four portraits of each queen, each differing in colour scheme and in the squares and rectangles distributed over them. Among them, the portraits of Queen Beatrix stand out, Warhol said at the time. Hers was “the best looking one of the whole bunch!” the museum quoted him as saying. “Warhol’s ‘Reigning Queens’ series is characteristic of his work as a pioneer of the American Pop Art movement, elevating everyday subjects to art,” it added. The Het Loo museum said it may be the last time admirers will be able to view Warhol’s queens for a while, “because of their inherent fragility”. Andy Warhol died on February 22, 1987 in New York, aged 58. The exhibition runs until January 1 next year.

150 years of Impressionism celebrated, and Warhol royal prints, at Dutch museums

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Works by Monet, Renoir and others can be seen at the Van Gogh Museum, while Andy Warhol’s ‘Reigning Queens’ show is at another Dutch museum

Works by Monet, Renoir and others can be seen at the Van Gogh Museum, while Andy Warhol’s ‘Reigning Queens’ show is at another Dutch museum