When the Americans in Paris, 1860-1900 traveling exhibition was first announced, it almost sounded like too much of a good thing. Organized by the National Gallery, London, the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, and in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (where it is currently on view until January 28, 2007), this large show is overflowing with extremely famous late 19th-century American paintings. Would it be merely dazzling, I wondered, or would it be so dazzling that I'd want to stop midway through for a fattening slice of cheesecake, strong black coffee and two Ibuprofen tablets in order to restore various levels of mental, emotional and physiological balance?

Thankfully, Correspondent Anne-Marie Jacobus was able to view Americans in Paris... during its stay at the National Gallery, London and has reported that while, yes, the exhibition is quite an eyeful, it is also well worth the trip. For one thing, coordinating so many loans of such iconic status takes years to organize and the included works, much like Clark Kent and Superman, are seldom seen together in the same venue. For another thing, Paris was hugely influential on both American artists who studied there, and the American art scene they subsequently revised after coming back across the Atlantic. It's always great to put these factors in historical context. And, for yet another thing, this exhibition is wonderfully inclusive of the female and minority artists that went to forward-thinking Paris simply because it was only there that they, too, could be trained in visual arts techniques at the time. Many thanks to Anne-Marie for summarizing the salient points! Please do give her review of Americans in Paris a read, and have a go at The Met's version if your time and circumstances permit. (Cheesecake optional - though New York's is indisputably the world's best.)

Image credit:

John Singer Sargent (American, 1856-1925)
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, 1882
Oil on canvas
221.93 x 222.57 cm (87 3/8 x 87 5/8 in.)
Gift of Mary Louisa Boit, Julia Overing Boit,
Jane Hubbard Boit, and Florence D. Boit in memory of
their father, Edward Darley Boit, 1919
19.124
© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston