WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.- Reynolda House Museum of American Art will host “American Impressions: Selections from the National Academy Museum,” an exhibition featuring 32 masterworks of American Impressionism from the National Academy Museum in New York complemented by four masterworks from the Reynolda House collection. Reynolda House is the only venue outside of the National Academy Museum to host the exhibition. It will be on view from February 28 through June 28, 2009. The exhibition is organized by the National Academy Museum, New York.

The late 19th and early 20th century paintings in the exhibition were created in response to the development of Impressionism in France beginning in the 1860s. From the unique effects of light and atmosphere, to brilliance and immediacy of color, to new and informal composition, these works illustrate the full range of Impressionist qualities that captivated artists and audiences both then and now. The exhibition encompasses landscapes, portraits, and still lifes by artists including George Bellows, William Merritt Chase, Thomas Wilmer Dewing, Lilian Westcott Hale, Childe Hassam, John La Farge, John Singer Sargent, and Henry Ossawa Tanner.

Over the course of nearly two centuries, the National Academy has assembled one of the largest and most significant collections of American art in the country. Many works have been donated by the artists themselves as their diploma presentations, a requirement of election as a National Academician.

Reynolda House Museum of American Art is one of the nation’s premier American art museums, with masterpieces by Mary Cassatt, Frederic Church, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keefe and Gilbert Stuart among its permanent collection. Affiliated with Wake Forest University, Reynolda House features traveling and original exhibitions, concerts, lectures, classes, film screenings, and other events. The museum is located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in the historic 1917 estate of Katharine Smith Reynolds and her husband, Richard Joshua Reynolds, founder of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. Reynolda House and adjacent Reynolda Gardens and Reynolda Village feature a spectacular public garden, dining, shopping and walking trails. For more information, please visit reynoldahouse.org or call 336.758.5150.