Related Events

Picture Yourself at the Clark Winter Party
Saturday, February 13, 6 pm
The Clark's winter gala is always a popular and fun event. Don't miss the party of the season celebrating the opening of Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris with an evening of music, wine, and hors d'oeuvres. And of course enjoy an exhibition preview that transports you to charming scenes of bustling streets, cafés, and concert halls of Impressionist Paris.$50 ($40 member); space limited, RSVP by February 5 to 413.458.0524 or purchase tickets online at clarkart.edu

Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris
Opening Lecture
Sunday, February 14, 3 pm
Sarah Lees, associate curator of European art, will discuss the early career of Giovanni Boldini, and consider how he evolved from an artist who painted genre scenes, city views, and landscapes, to one of the most prominent society portraitists around the turn of the twentieth century. This event is sponsored by WGBY Public Television for Western New England.

Mediterranean Light:
The Artistic Imagination of Italy
Sunday, March 14, 3 pm
Judith Meighan, associate professor in the history of art at Syracuse University, will discuss art in Italy in the late nineteenth century. The investigation of light—so much more brilliant around the Mediterranean than in Paris—and its surrounding atmosphere became the means by which the innovative artists of Italy created a new artistic language and an identity some felt was more powerful and energizing than anything made in France. This event is sponsored by WGBY Public Television for Western New England.

Portraits of Society:
Films of Boldini's Paris
Saturdays, 2 pm
Giovanni Boldini made a name for himself painting portraits of the fashionable high society of Belle Époque France, and this film series looks at the styles of dress and décor, as well as the passions and decorum of that particular class, time, and place.

• March 20 - Gigi (1958, 116 min.)
• March 27 - Earrings of Madame de... (1954, 105 min., in French with subtitles)
• April 3 - Swann in Love (1984, 110 min., in French with subtitles)
• April 10 - Gabrielle (2005, 90 min., in French with subtitles)

The Place to Learn Painting:
Sargent (and Boldini) in Paris
Sunday, April 11, 3 pm
Discover what elements attracted young, Italian-born men to Paris to learn painting in the 1870s in this lecture by curator of American art Marc Simpson. John Singer Sargent, an American artist who was born in Florence, was among those who flocked to Paris where his path crossed that of another young painter from Italy, Giovanni Boldini. This event is sponsored by WGBY Public Television for Western New England.

Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris
By Sarah Lees
With contributions by Richard Kendall
and Barbara Guidi

232 pages, 9 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches
134 color and 6 black-and-white illustrations
2009
Published by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute and Ferrara Arte
ISBN 978-0-300-13411-7 (hardcover)