Reflecting on 'After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art'

Fabulous online lecture from the National Gallery discussing some of the practicalities of putting on the current "After Impressionism" exhibition and what the curators have learnt from it.

Julien Domerq, the co-curator of the show and Amy Mechowski, an art historian covered the curation of the show highlighting the negotiations and compromises, new interpretations following the show and the critical response to the show.

I was fascinated to realise that a third of the works in the show were from private collections and to hear the issues they faced changing their plans following the outbreak of the war in the Ukraine as they had planned a number of Russian loan. Also to hear about how they negotiated those loans. They talked us through the process for some of the key works.

They addressed some of the issues raised by the critics about the show around the lack of female artists in the show and how it addressed colonialism. I was much amused to hear that one reason there were only six women artists in the show was partly that there are so many shows on women artists at the moment that most of the works they wanted were already promised to other shows.

There was also a great Q&A session at the end which discussed the paint colours used for the walls and what happens when you don't get a work you want. The talk was so good I ended up going to see the exhibition again a couple of days later.