The Saint Louis Art Museum is making art history this fall with “Women Impressionists and the Land,” the first exhibition ever devoted to landscapes as a distinct and essential body of work by the women artists of Impressionism. The SLAM-organized exhibition opens October 17, 2026, and runs through January 10, 2027.
Featuring 70 works — paintings, works on paper and ceramics — drawn from prestigious international and national museum collections and many private collections, the exhibition makes the case that landscape painting was central to the practice of the women Impressionists and a reflection of their assertion of independence at a time when women’s activities outside the home were often constrained.
What you will see
- The great pioneers: the three leading women Impressionists who showed at the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874–1886 — Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Marie Bracquemond — plus works by Edma Morisot-Pontillon, Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, Louise Abbéma, Élodie La Villette and Rosa Bonheur.
- Seven galleries: from Rosa Bonheur and the Salon of the 1860s to Cassatt’s country estate at the Château de Beaufresne, including the large-scale Bracquemond “Woman in White” on loan from the Musée d’Orsay.
- Never-before-seen works: two new SLAM acquisitions make their public debut — Bracquemond’s “Still Life With Oranges” and Morisot-Pontillon’s “Women in Woods” — alongside newly discovered canvases displayed for the first time.
- Programs for every visitor: an opening lecture by curator Simon Kelly on October 16, plus panel conversations, scholarly lectures, films and musical performances throughout the run of the show.
The exhibition’s curatorial ambition is impressive: it traces how these artists worked outdoors and traveled widely, developing some of the most innovative approaches to capturing the land in the entire Impressionist movement. Gallery by gallery, visitors move from the Morisot sisters’ Salon-era beginnings through Bracquemond’s cross-media invention, the cultivated nature of Parisian parks, the working agricultural landscapes around Bougival, Mézy and Giverny, and the late networks that linked Morisot, Cassatt and Blanche Hoschedé-Monet.
Plan your visit
- Dates: October 17, 2026 – January 10, 2027 (then on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Art from March 6, 2027)
- Where: Saint Louis Art Museum, One Fine Arts Drive, Forest Park
- Accompanied by: a fully illustrated catalogue edited by Simon Kelly and published by Yale University Press
As Happy City News sees it, this is the kind of exhibition that rewrites a chapter of art history in front of your eyes — the women of Impressionism, reclaiming the landscapes that were always theirs. Do not miss it. See the official exhibition announcement here
