PAST EVENT: This was part of the EAF22 programme.

A Taste for Impressionism focused on the pioneering nineteenth-century Scottish collectors who had the foresight to invest in the avant-garde, with a stellar cast of artists represented, including Monet, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. While today a work by any of these names would fetch millions at auction, in the late nineteenth century, these artists were pilloried by the press and prices for their paintings were surprisingly low. 

Many ‘new money’ collectors had made their fortune in industry and were keen to acquire edgy works by contemporary artists, including Scots who collected pieces by Degas, Monet, Pissarro, and Cézanne well before their English counterparts. As the market for Impressionism began to thrive, a more sinister side industry in ‘fakes’ took hold. A Taste for Impressionism included a few of these counterfeit works, each of which will remain unidentified, to test visitors’ powers of discernment.