SAN ANTONIO, TX.- When artists from around the world flocked to Paris in the 1900s, they fostered imaginative innovation that shifted the trajectory of visual art.
The McNay Art Museum celebrates the creativity that blossomed from their collaboration in “Modern Paris: A Century Begins,” on view Oct. 30, 2026-Jan. 24, 2027. The exhibition of more than 50 paintings, prints and sculptures draws exclusively from the McNay Art Museum’s permanent collection and showcases a range of artists, including Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Berthe Morisot, Pablo Picasso, Cham Soutine and Vincent van Gogh.
The exhibition highlights Marion Koogler McNay as the Museum’s founding collector and opens with Alfred Sisley’s “The Route from Saint-Germain to Marly” (1872). Sisley’s painting depicts the quiet villages on the outskirts of Paris and was displayed in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. The evolution that followed is evident in works by Paul Czanne, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Gauguin and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Vincent van Gogh, Women Crossing the Fields, 1890. Oil on paper. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.49
“Marion Koogler McNay’s collecting of French modernist works was visionary for South Texas in the 1930s and 1940s. She built this collection with real discernment at a time when many of these artists were not yet the canonical figures they later became,” said Matthew McLendon, Ph.D., director and CEO of the McNay Art Museum and curator of “Modern Paris.” “Much of these holdings have been distributed across the permanent collection galleries in thematic hangs or off view. Bringing key works together in this way illustrates how the McNay’s collection can highlight this important moment in western art history.”
The exhibition invites visitors to explore the rise of Fauvism and Cubism featuring a host of works that challenge what those artists perceived as Impressionism’s limitations in form and boldness.
Paul Czanne, Houses on the Hill, 1900-06. Oil on canvas. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.23
Picasso upends the history of image making with “Guitar and Wine Glass” (1912). The collage features wallpaper, a newspaper clipping, sheet music, a wine glass drawing and paper that mimics the shape and woodgrain of a guitar. The McNay’s Tobin Collection of Theatre Arts includes Matisse’s “Robe for the Emperor” costume for the ballet “Le Chant du Rossignol” and Picasso’s maquette for “Le Tricorne.” Both objects in the exhibition emphasize collaborations between visual artists and performing artists.
Alfred Sisley, The Route from Saint-Germain to Marly, 1872. Oil on canvas. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Frederic G. Oppenheimer, 1955.2
The exhibition also showcases the McNay’s holdings of prints that cemented Paris as the capital of innovative printmaking in the early 20th century. During that time, dealers and publishers such as Ambroise Vollard produced limited edition prints for major artists, including Braque, Picasso and Georges Rouault. Etchings from “Posies de Stphane Mallarm” invite visitors to examine artwork from Matisse’s first livre d’artiste (artist’s book). Published by Albert Skira in 1932, the book is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of the format, in which artist and poet collaborate as genuine equals.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Le Divan Japonais, 1893. Lithograph. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1967.6
“Modern Paris” ends with a selection of works by artists collectively referred to as “The School of Paris.” These artists who weren’t native to Paris converged on Montparnasse because of the region’s relative tolerance for difference. Among the works on view is Amedeo Modigliani’s “Girl with Blue Eyes” (1918), a standout work in the McNay’s collection that conveys the powerful innovation associated with Modigliani’s painting as well as the feelings of intimacy he was able to produce between subject and viewer.
“The innovations taking place in Paris, that resonated quickly across Europe and beyond in the first decades of the 20th century are why I became an art historian. I think it is one of the most thrilling moments in art history. Marion Koogler McNay clearly felt the same way based on her collecting for the first modern art museum in Texas,” explained McLendon. “‘Modern Paris’ offers visitors a more specific sense of this moment and of one of the strengths of the McNay Art Museum’s collection that was built by a woman and continues to grow following her bold example.”
Marion Koogler McNay, Pepita and the Little Pig, ca. 1926-1932. Watercolor on paper. Collection of the McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.355
“Modern Paris: A Century Begins” is organized by the McNay Art Museum and curated by Matthew McLendon, Ph.D., director and CEO of the McNay Art Museum.
