Please join us on January 2nd when Alliance Française of Richmond will travel to the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk.  There, we will visit the exhibit Farm to Table: Art, Food, and Identity in the Age of Impressionism.  

The exhibit explores France’s relationship with food at the end of the nineteenth century through paintings and sculptures by leading artists. French cuisine had long been viewed as a reflection of the nation’s identity and a source of popular pride. Yet in the decades following the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), artists depicted the growing, cooking, transporting, serving and, of course, eating of food as a means of highlighting the economic and social instabilities of this tumultuous moment in French history. Ubiquitous scenes of farms, markets, and restaurants, offer gateways for considering the political, social, and cultural factors shaping France on the eve of the modern era.

Featuring more than fifty works, the exhibition showcases famous Impressionist artists, such as Marie Bracquemond, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, as well as the works of leading figures in the French Salon, such as Eugene Boudin, Jean Béraud, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Victor Gabriel Gilbert, and Léon Augustin Lhermitte. Together their works form a resonant picture of the intersection between French cuisine and period social discourse, with the exhibition organized thematically to chart the cultivation, harvest, purchase, and enjoyment of food.

In addition, The Chrysler Museum of Art has a magnificent glass collection and is exhibiting Ice to Water by Peter Bremers.  There will be plenty of time in the schedule to view the glass collection as well as other parts of the museum.

We will carpool from Richmond.  Once we understand how many will be joining us, we will organize carpooling after registration closes on the 27th.

Entrance to the museum is free as well as parking at The Chrysler Museum.  

We will have lunch in the museum's café and attendees will be responsible for their own meal costs.

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