The Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden
Jun 14, 2014 – Sep 21, 2014
Paris comes to the Park Blocks in summer 2014 with this international exhibition celebrating the Tuileries Garden. This stunning exhibition explores the art, design, and evolution of Paris’ most famous garden. It also celebrates garden designer André Le Nôtre (1613–1700)—best known for his grand perspectives and symmetry at the chateaux gardens of Versailles.
The Tuileries, which stretches from the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde in central Paris, was originally created in 1564 in the Italian style and became the city’s first public park in 1667. Created at the behest of Queen Catherine de’ Medici, the garden was designed to enhance the Tuileries Palace, which was destroyed by fire in the 1871 uprising known as the Paris Commune.
Originally, the garden was reserved exclusively for royalty, but starting in the late 17th century, it became increasingly accessible to the public. Art has played a critical role in the history of the Tuileries Garden. Its beauty has inspired generations of artists, and it has also functioned as an outdoor museum, with works from the classical to the contemporary dotting its vast grounds. This major exhibition will present more than 100 sculptures, paintings, photographs, and drawings by some of the most acclaimed European and American artists from the 17th to the 20th centuries, including works by Pissarro, Édouard Manet, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and others who have taken inspiration from the iconic Parisian landmark. Visitors will also see monumental sculpture by Coysevox and Bosio from the garden for the first time in the United States.
Special exhibition programming will include lectures with international scholars, en plein air painting in the Park Blocks, family activities, tours of parks, and more.
This special exhibition is co-organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Toledo Museum of Art, and the Portland Art Museum, with the special collaboration of the Musée du Louvre and the Musée Carnavalet Histoire de Paris. Host curated by Bruce Guenther, chief curator and The Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.