Winning Pair: Bellagio thrives in partnership with Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Sun Staff

Tuesday, June 14, 2005 | 8:24 a.m.

In its second partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art last weekend, opened "The Impressionist Landscape from Corot to Van Gogh," a 34-piece collection of 19th-century French painting.

The show covers the evolution of impressionism from the Barbizon School to Post-Impressionist period, beginning with Theodore Rousseau's perfectly composed "Pool in the Forest" and ending with Van Gogh's "Houses at Auvers," which the artist painted shortly before he died.

In between are seascapes by Boudin, Charles Francis Daubigny's "Chateau Gaillard at Sunset," Millet's "Washerwomen" and Constant Troyon's "Field Outside Paris."

"It's among their finest stuff," said Matthew Hileman, managing director, Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, while looking around the dimmed room full of dramatic landscapes. "We just can't believe what they were giving to us."

Just how the gallery managed to obtain the paintings is the continued story of a partnership that began last year between the MFA and the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, owned by PaperBall, a division of New York's Pace Wildenstein.

The loan of the Monet paintings, in return for an undisclosed large amount of money, had art critics shaking their heads, while tourists 450,000 in 16 months lined up to see the work.

"We had such a great response from it," Hileman said. 'We didn't know people would find landscape paintings so interesting."

Gauging visitor response when reaching international tourists, who may be coming to Las Vegas for means other than art, can be tricky, Hileman said.

"It's always hard to tell what the public is going to respond to. We have such a diverse group."

But, he added, "We focused on impressionism because impressionism is so loved internationally."

Marc Glimcher and Andrea Bundonis selected the work with George Shackelford, MFA's chair, art of Europe of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bundonis was out of the country and unavailable for interviews by press time, but has said that the partnership with the MFA gives her a chance to show works that don't fit into PaperBall's focus on contemporary art.

Malcolm Rogers, the Ann and Graham Gund director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, said the exhibit provides the MFA an opportunity to showcase some of their finest work in an intimate setting.

"It's a special pleasure to do a really distilled experience," Rogers said. "It makes it intense and meaningful."

Rogers, who was attacked by art critics after the MFA's original partnership with the for-profit Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, said he doesn't understand what the hoopla was about.

"Frankly, we love the people coming to see the exhibit," he said. "No one would ever criticize a masterpiece by Wagner going to Las Vegas."

Besides, he said, "The whole point is to tell people, 'Visit the Boston museum, and also Boston.' We believe in bold steps."

Glimcher's parents are longtime supporters of the museum's School of Fine Arts and of the museum, which is currently exhibiting the cars of Ralph Lauren (another bold move for Rogers) and quilts made by black Americans living in the most rural parts of the South.

Of its vast collection of impressionist paintings, Rogers said, "We're extraordinarily strong in 19th-century paintings, so it's possible to mount these."

The Bellagio gallery officials couldn't be more delighted. Walking into a room where there are two works by the British-born Sisley, a Pissarro, four Monets (including his signature work, "Water Lily Pond Japanese Bridge") and two Renoirs, Hileman said, "This is a mini-exhibition in itself."

Other field-and-forest scenes include Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's "Bacchanal at the Spring: Souvenir of Marly-le-Roi." The painting features out-of-context mythological characters, which the artist used to justify his wild act of venturing outdoors to paint.

Inspired by English painter John Constable, the painters eventually realized that they didn't need the mythological characters, and instead included peasants and other land workers in the French countrysides captured in wispy strokes.

"Landscapes, prior to 1850, it was almost unheard of," Hileman said. "There was no such thing as a landscape painting."

Still, he said, referring to Charles Francois Daubigny's "Chateau Galliard at Sunset," "They actually despised his work in the 19th century. It was too loose, too fast."

Troyon's "Sheep and Shepherd in a Landscape," an English-style piece painted on paper board, is illuminant and thick, with dabs of white used to make the sheep pop out of the painting.

"This is really the zenith of a 19th-century landscape painting," Hileman said.

Often the painters believed they were immortalizing the landscapes, endangered by industrialization.

"These people went out to capture landscapes, French countrysides because they thought they were disappearing," Hileman said.

Referring to Van Gogh's "Houses at Auvers," Hileman said, "This was a little tiny town he thought wasn't going to exist anymore."

The lights in the gallery were dimmed for the exhibit, in contrast to the Monet exhibit, where visitors focused on Monet's "brilliant light of day," Hileman said, adding that the current exhibit is "so calm, so serene."

"Houses at Auvers" has turned out to be the star of the exhibit.

Said Hileman, "They did quite a bit of negotiating to make sure that was in the show."