With
an Essay by E. Adina Gordon. Pubished by the Palmer Museum of Art,
Musée d'Art Américain Giverny.
Frederick
MacMonnies is best known today as one of the leading figurative
sculptors of the American Renaissance. Residing in France for much
of his professional career, MacMonnies, along with his first wife,
the painter Mary Fairchild MacMonnies, often visited Giverny, home
to the reclusive Claude Monet and numerous American Impressionists
in the final decade of the nineteenth century. By 1894 the town
was the MacMonnies's favorite summer retreat, and in 1898 they moved
permanently into an old priory in Giverny, dubbed the "MacMonastery"
by friends.
It was at this time, just as the new century dawned, that MacMonnies
launched his career as a painter. Although he continued to produce
sculpture, the artist happily painted portraits and occasionally
submitted paintings to the annual salons for nearly a decade. Mary
MacMonnies also continued to pursue her artistic career from their
remote enclave outside Paris. This catalogue, which accompanied
two exhibitions, "An Interlude in Giverny: The French Chevalier
by Frederick MacMonnies" and "An Interlude in Giverny: Dans la
nursery by Mary MacMonnies Low," explores the artistic and personal
milieus surrounding the creation of two masterworks by the MacMonnieses
during this Giverny interlude.
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