TAIPEI.- “Manet to Picasso: Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art”is Taiwan’s first time to work with an American museum on an international art exhibition. The artworks are from 33 masters, including 53 oil paintings and 5 bronze sculptures. This exhibition provides an overview of the development and styles of Western art from Impressionism to contemporary Avant-garde art.

Chen Wen-ling, Acting Director, Taipei Fine Arts Museum said, "Our cooperation with the Philadelphia Museum of Art is a special presentation on the art history of different genres and styles since the 19th century. The collection in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is very impressive, with 225,000 art pieces. They have a very rich collection from the impressionists to modern art, they are all masterpieces."

Starting from Manet, the impressionism master in modern city life and people of the end of 19th century, the exhibition displays artworks of impressionism painters who rose from 1874 to 1886, such as Boudin, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Cassatt and others. Other artworks are from post-impressionism artists, such as Cezanne, Gaugin, Van Gogh. The artworks of Rousseau influenced by post-impressionism will be shown as well. Important genres created from 1907 to 1940 are also displayed, including artworks of cubism and Parisian artists: Picasso, Braque, Leger, Derain, Lipchitz, Gris, Chagall and Modigliani. At the end, there are works created after 1913, which are from American artists who developed their own painting styles and techniques, such as Dadaism, O’Keeffe and Tanguy.

Established in 1876, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has close to a quarter of a million historically significant works of art, including paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Chinese porcelain, architectural installations, and contemporary artworks. An American landmark, the museum possesses magnificent impressionist and post impressionist collections, as well as celebrated collections of artworks by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and American painters. The museum has an extremely enlightened and creative approach towards art historical research and its dazzling curatorial concepts have reaped the museum the opportunity to organize the United States Pavilion of the Venice Biennale two times. This exhibition marks the first time the Taipei Fine Art Museum is cooperating with a major American museum and is a rare opportunity. Focusing on the development of the Philadelphia Museum of Art collection, the exhibition offers viewers a glimpse of American philanthropic patterns and museum collecting style. The exhibition is a veritable feast including sixty paintings and sculptures by the legendary artists Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, and Georgia O'Keeffe.