Find out all you need to know about the Normandy Impressionist Festival

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Lulu Berlu / AdobeStock
© Lulu Berlu / AdobeStock

Reading time: 0 minPublished on 14 March 2024

In 2020, the Normandy Impressionist Festival is on everyone's lips; it's the flagship event of the cultural season of the year in France, after all. Whether you're a casual fan or an expert on the artistic movement, you'll be surprised by the ultra-rich program of this Impressionist festival, which also explores the influence of the Impressionists in contemporary art. In Honfleur, Le Havre, Caen, Rouen or Deauville—check out the the festival in 10 highlights.

2020 Dates

Initially scheduled from April 3 to September 6, the Normandy Impressionnist Festival 2020 event has been postponed and will take place from July 4 to November 15, 2020.

The event will run throughout the summer and autumn of 2020, with a gradual opening from July 4 of a large number of impressionist and contemporary art, as well as photography exhibitions. Nearly all exhibitions are presented in a way that respects the health of artists, both personal and public. Nevertheless, all large gatherings are cancelled for the time being.

The new programming schedule will be unveiled in detail shortly. We advise you to consult the organizers' website for any update on the events listed below.

"Nuits Electriques" Exhibition at MuMa Le Havre

From July 3 to November 1, 2020 (dates to be confirmed), the André Malraux Museum of Modern Art in Le Havre is exhibiting Impressionist works that marvel at or question the arrival of electricity in cities. Simultaneously magical, industrial and worrying, urban nights were disrupted between 1850 and 1914. Through paintings and engravings, we discover the appearance of street lamps, which coexisted with the old oil and gas lighting methods until the First World War. The place of electricity in these paintings echoes today, allowing us to question the mutations of the 21st century—are we in our own the night of the impressionists? Search for answers at MuMa Le Havre.

Open-air exhibition "Rouen impressionist 2020".

From June to September 2020 (dates to be confirmed). Since 2010, during the festival, the city of Rouen has been offering an exhibition of works in public spaces: contemporary creations, some of which are now a permanent part of the landscape and heritage of the districts they were exhibited in. Street art is once again in the spotlight in 2020, with about twenty more original creations: a real open-air exhibition, collages, chalk works, engravings, happenings and installations.

"The Burning Cities" Exhibition at Caen Museum of Fine Arts

From July 11 to November 22, 2020 (dates to be confirmed). The exhibition "Les Villes ardentes - Art, travail, révolte" (Burning Cities - Art, Work, Revolt) goes through the important changes of the period from 1870 to 1914, between the Paris Commune and the First World War. Around one hundred works offer an approach to the landscape, people and social history of the period. You'll discover how the artists took over and interpreted the scenes of daily life related to work.

Cathedral of Light in Rouen

From June 13 to September 20, 2020 (dates to be confirmed). Every evening, at nightfall, the facade of Rouen Cathedral is illuminated during a big night show thanks to the video-mapping technique. A plunge into the world of the impressionists: canoes, water lilies, the Giverny bridge, the sea and the cliffs. Come along and live in an impressionist canvas! - Cathedral of Light in Rouen

Exhibition "François Depeaux, the man with 600 paintings", Rouen Museum of Fine Arts

From April 3 to September 7, 2020 (dates to be confirmed). The Rouen Museum of Fine Arts offers an opportunity to explore the life of François Depeaux, a central figure in Impressionism: the Rouen industrialist owned nearly 600 paintings and drawings, including some 20 by Monet and as many as 55 by Sisley, as well as masterpieces by Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Pissarro, and more. A visionary, the collector accompanied the artistic movement from its beginnings to its triumph. - Beaux-Arts Museum at Rouen

Exhibition Lukas Hoffmann, Le Point du Jour, in Cherbourg

From April 26 to September 6, 2020 (dates to be confirmed). The exhibition brings together prints and an original production by photographer Lukas Hoffmann, who navigates between street photography and the limits of abstraction, in environments such as small factories, abandoned buildings or wastelands.

Exhibition "Outdoors. De Corot à Monet et L'atelier de la nature", in Giverny

Dates to be confirmed In the early 18th century, open-air painting began to take off, even though it posed serious organizational problems. Through some fifty works by Corot, Boudin, Monet, Courbet, Degas and Manet, the Musée des Impressionnismes de Giverny retraces the history of painting on the spectacle of nature between 1708 and 1873, on the eve of the invention of the term "Impressionism."
- Exhibition "Plein air. De Corot à Monet"

Exhibition "La photographie à l'épreuve de l'abstraction", Frac Normandie in Rouen

From April 25 to August 30, 2020 (dates to be confirmed). Dedicated to the forms of abstraction in contemporary photography, this major exhibition echoes the Impressionists' research on color. This exhibition is an opportunity to discover the latest aesthetic experiences of artists of the younger generation. - Exhibition "Photography to the proof of abstraction"

"Gérard Fromager, annoncez la couleur" Exhibition (Gérard Fromager, announcing color), Caen Museum of Fine Arts

From 16 May to 20 September 2020 (dates to be confirmed). For half a century, Gérard Fromager has been celebrating color with his four-color printing. The exhibition presents some sixty works created from 1966 to 2018. - Exhibition "Gérard Fromager, display the colour" at the Caen Museum of Beaux-Arts - Also read: Exhibitions not to be missed in France in 2020

Exhibition "The Colors of the Sea", Eugène Boudin Museum, Honfleur

From June 6 to September 20, 2020 (dates to be confirmed). In Honfleur, this exhibition is devoted to the work of Charles-François and Karl Daubigny in Normandy. Father and son are fascinated by the vastness of the ocean, the sunsets, the black rocks at low tide, the beach and the cliffs. This exhibition is an exploration of that fascination. - Exhibition "The Colours of the Sea", Eugène Boudin museum in Honfleur

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