Anne Higonnet
New York, Barnard College of Columbia University, Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard University, 2019-2020
Donations of Impressionism to public collections have always reflected the sceptical and critical character of the best Impressionist art. In this spirit, I question current boundaries around museum collections of Impressionism, whether in the form of entire museums, such as the Musée d'Orsay, or of galleries dedicated to European paintings in American museums. Moving forward, in light of new calls for social justice in our time of global crisis, I ask for the integration of all collections of nineteenth century art, regardless of the race of their makers. The late nineteenth-century French making of art, and the late nineteenth-century French taking of art from the places of its creation, I believe, now belong together in the same museums and galleries.
