No longer do you have to travel to the other side of the globe to see paintings by Monet and Renoir.
Colour and Light: Impressionism from France and America opens in a new gallery at the capital’s museum today – six weeks after Warhol: Immortalbegan showing.
Until the end of next month visitors can see the work of Andy Warhol in one gallery and then pop next door for a taste of Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Pissarro and Degas. It is the first time Te Papa has had two international exhibitions at the same time.
Te Papa head of arts and visual culture Jonathan Mane-Wheoki expects to see more international artists’ work as part of a vision to make it the national institute for art.
“Since Te Papa opened we’ve had a real problem getting people’s heads around how a huge museum can also be a place for art. That’s been a real challenge,” he said.
The latest impressionism collection on loan from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is the second, after some of Monet’s work was on display in 2009.
Boston holds the largest collection of Monet’s work outside Paris and the depth of it is highlighted by the number on loan.
“It says a lot about the depth of the collection that they can send more than 60 over here and it doesn’t even make a dent on the Boston gallery,” Mr Mane-Wheoki said.
“All of the Monet work here now is also completely different from anything we had in 2009.”
It was hoped the museum would always have at least one international exhibition on show in future, which would ensure the 150,000 visitors to the 2009 exhibition would become an annual target.
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