Blue Grass, Green Skies: American Impressionism and Realism Opens August 24 at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

August 24 - December 29, 2024, at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts

FOR RELEASE: July 31, 2024
MEDIA CONTACT: Emma Ryder, director of marketing and communications at Emma.ryder@umfa.utah.edu

Download the press kit for Blue Grass, Green Skies here.
Download the press kit for Photo-Secession here.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) on the University of Utah Campus is thrilled to announce the opening of Blue Grass, Green Skies: American Impressionism and Realism from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on August 24, 2024. This captivating collection of masterful paintings highlights the journey of a once-controversial art movement 150 years after the first infamous Impressionist exhibition in Paris.

An impressionist painting of a tree on a cliffside.
F. Childe Hassam (American, 1859-1935) Point Lobos, Carmel, 1914, Oil on canvas, 28 5/16 x 36 3/16 in., Mr. and Mrs. William Preston Harrison Collection American Art, 29.18.2

“Blue Grass, Green Skies will transform our large special exhibition gallery into a jewel box of American Modernist painting from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.” Says Alisa McCusker, UMFA senior curator and curator of European and American art.

“The selection of paintings represent life from a period of significant change by artists working in Europe and across the United States, including such major figures as Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, and George Bellows.” She continues.

Blue Grass, Green Skies features seventeen stunning paintings from notable American artists who were pioneers of the Impressionism and Realism movements. The paintings, ranging from serene landscapes to vibrant urban scenes, illustrate how American artists interpreted their rapidly changing world through experimental painting techniques.

On view through December 29, 2024, the UMFA’s presentation of Blue Grass, Green Skies offers a unique dialogue between painting and photography with the concurrent exhibition Photo-Secession: Painterly Masterworks of Turn-of-the-Century Photography. This exclusive pairing showcases how photographers and painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries influenced one another, with photographers emulating painterly effects and painters capturing the immediacy of photography.

Blue Grass, Green Skies is organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) with generous support by the Art Bridges Foundation. Their contributions made it possible to bring this extraordinary collection to the UMFA, allowing Utah’s art-loving community to engage with iconic works of American art. “We are honored to be working with the Art Bridges Foundation and supporting their unique mission to bring art from more collection-rich institutions to regional museums just like the UMFA,” said Gretchen Dietrich, the Marcia and John Price Executive Director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.  The UMFA’s presentation of the exhibition is sponsored locally by ESRR Impact Endowment Fund and Toni F. Bloomberg.

Information on events supporting the exhibition, including a curator talk on September 19, will be published at https://umfa.utah.edu/list/event-type/blue-grass-green-skies. 

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts is located on the University of Utah campus in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building at 410 Campus Center Drive. The UMFA's mission is to inspire critical dialogue and illuminate the role of art in our lives. For more information call (801) 581-7332 or visit www.umfa.utah.edu.