Four new American Impressionist paintings for Giverny

13/9/23 - Acquisitions - Giverny, Musée des Impressionnismes - In addition to the three Eugène Boudin paintings recently added to the Musée des Impressionnismes collection (see news item of 1/8/23), four new paintings by American Impressionists Mary Colman Wheeler (ill. 1) and Theodore Earl Butler (ill. 2 to 4) have been added. While Butler’s The Dîme Farm in Giverny (ill. 2) was purchased by the museum from the Maximilien Ambroselli gallery [1], Wheeler’s canvas and Butler’s other two paintings were offered to the museum. The Tea in the Garden by the former (ill. 1) was a gift from her descendants, the children of Richard Warren Wheeler and Betty Ann Owens Wheeler, while the two New York landscapes from the latter (ill. 3 and 4) were bequeathed by Françoise Lemaire.

1. Mary Colman Wheeler (1846-1920)
Tea in the Garden, 1910
Oil on canvas - 84 x 74 cm
Giverny, Musée des Impressionnismes
Photo: Giverny, Musée des Impressionnismes/J.-C. Louiset

See the image in its page

Previously absent from the museum’s collections, Mary Colman Wheeler was one of the protagonists of the artistic colony established in Giverny around Claude Monet, a largely American colony to which the Musée des impressionnismes, then the Museum of American Art, devoted an exhibition in 2007 (see article). Surrounded by her students from the all-female art school she had founded in 1882 in Providence (Rhode Island) - the Wheeler School, now a private general school for girls and boys - Mary Colman Wheeler travelled to France every summer from 1887 onwards to teach her summer courses. She settled specifically in Giverny between 1907 and 1912, working en plein-air among her pupils, favouring studies from live models that gave rise to intimate scenes set in gardens, such as Tea in the Garden. The American impressionist’s graphic work was the subject of a dedicated exhibition at the Wheeler School in 2017 [2], her painted work did not benefit from the second part planned for…