ST. PETERSBURG, FLA.- All exhibitions during the 50th anniversary year in 2015 are inspired by the MFA’s stellar collection. Masterpieces created by French artists and by others working in France are a hallmark, and four are included in Monet to Matisse—On the French Coast.

Exceptional paintings are also coming from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art and The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., and closer to home, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. Private collectors in both the U.S. and Europe are sharing their treasures.

Monet to Matisse, set for Saturday, February 7-Sunday, May 31, brings together paintings created on both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts of France and opens on the same day the MFA opened to the public in 1965. To commemorate this joyous occasion, the MFA is presenting a Founders Day Open House—free for everyone—on the first day of the exhibition from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Major artists represented in the show include Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Paul Signac, Max Beckmann, and the talented brothers Raoul and Jean Dufy. The vast majority of the works have never been seen before in Florida or the Southeast.

Escaping the urban congestion and pressures of Paris, artists flocked to the smaller coastal towns and looked to the water, light, and sky for inspiration and renewal. The paintings in the exhibition were created in places like Nice, Cannes, Villefranche, Le Havre, Antibes, and Honfleur, each with its own distinctive character. The show extends from Eugène Boudin’s atmospheric Outskirts of Le Légué, the Port of Saint-Brieuc (1871-1873) to Jean Dufy’s Marseille (1954), with its dominant, deep blue palette.

Monet’s The Customs House at Varengeville (1897) evokes a sense of solitude, a meditative quality, as do Matisse’s Two Rays (1920), Bonnard’s Seascape, Cannes (1931), and the MFA’s beloved painting by Alfred Stevens, Woman by the Sea, Le Puys (1893). Vacation and leisure are reflected in many paintings, including in Renoir’s Figures on the Beach (1890) and Beckmann’s Sunny Beach with Bathers (1937). The exhibition encompasses pre-Impressionism to Modernism.

All was not sun and fun in all these locations, however. Some were harbors and working ports, centers for commercial and family fishing. The MFA’s painting by Pierre Daura, Port of Cassis (1925), is a prime example.

The beach and the port resonate with the Tampa Bay area. In fact, it is easy to imagine a number of the paintings being created in and around St. Petersburg. Jean Dufy’s Marseille brings to mind our downtown waterfront, with its sailboats dotting the bay and an expanse of buildings, resembling the Vinoy, in the background.

Paintings also encourage visitors to examine how artists treated settings around the same town. Othon Friesz, who studied early on with one of Raoul Dufy’s teachers, was drawn to the buildings and the fishing boats in Honfleur (1940), from the MFA collection. Both are wonderfully reflected in the water. In contrast, Jean Dufy’s Quai de la Planchette à Honfleur (1940) is colorful and full of light. It has an entirely different feeling, accentuated by its horizontal placement.

In keeping with the Museum’s golden anniversary, many of the paintings are festive in spirit, suggesting holidays and vacations. Two paintings by Picasso from the 1930s are magical, and Renoir’s Vineyard at Cagnes (1906) complements Wine Weekend St. Pete 2015: Cheers to 50 Years! Like the exhibition, that wine extravaganza and auction, presented by The Margaret Acheson Stuart Society, will launch the 50th anniversary in a big way.

Independent scholar and consultant Dr. Kenneth Wayne is the guest curator, collaborating with Hazel and William Hough Chief Curator Jennifer Hardin and Curatorial Assistant Sabrina Hughes. Dr. Wayne has curated impressive exhibitions closely related to this one and is the author of the essay for the fully illustrated catalogue, available in the Museum Store. Dr. Hardin curated Monet’s London: Artists’ Reflections on the Thames, 1859-1914, for the MFA’s 40th anniversary in 2005. The MFA is also grateful to the Galerie Jacques Bailly in Paris for considerable assistance with the loans of paintings by Jean Dufy, as well as to Mr. Bailly for his advice on the scope and theme of the exhibition.

Monet to Matisse—On the French Coast brings France to our doorstep and explores the settings that inspired some of the world’s most imaginative art. It also encourages us to appreciate the beauty of our hometown. It celebrates French art, the MFA, and the area, beginning the MFA’s 50th anniversary on an inspirational note.