Paths to Impressionism presents a range of media – with photography at the forefront – to explore how mid 19th Century French photographers anticipated the Impressionism of the final quarter of the century.
At the centre of the exhibition is the motif of the tree and running through the show is a focus on pathways, roads, railway bridges and rivers. Through the use of these motifs, the exhibition examines the ways in which Industrialisation and modernisation increased mobility and transformed the French landscape.
The exhibition focuses on several of the most important French photographers of the 19th century and places at its centre the paintings, drawings and photographs of one of the most fascinating figures, the painter and photographer André Giroux.
Through the work of Giroux and his contemporaries, the exhibition explores the dialogue between the different media and demonstrates the way photography, shaped by painting, forged its own landscape aesthetic.
The exhibition will showcase rare salt prints and paper and glass negatives by Count Olympe Aguado, Edouard Baldus, Adalbert Cuvelier, Eugène Cuvelier, Alphonse Delaunay, Giraudon’s Artist, André Giroux, Gustave Le Gray, Jean-Jacques Heilmann, Charles Marville, Charles Nègre, Henri-Victor Regnault, Louis-Rémy Robert, Ferdinand Tillard.
Paths to Impressionism: Photography and the French Landscape 1850-1870
7 September – 18 November 2022
James Hyman Gallery
48 & 50 Maddox Street
London W1S 1AY
www.jameshymangallery.com
