MEDIA RELEASEMonday 14 April, 2014

Art Gallery secures major Impressionist painting

The Art Gallery of South Australia has secured French Impressionist painter, Camille Pissarro’s Prairie à Éragny (1886)for the Gallery’s permanent collection. Purchased for $4.5 million at at Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Artauction in New York, it is the Gallery’s most significant acquisition to date.

Art Gallery of South Australia, Director, Nick Mitzevich said ‘this landscape by Pissarro is a quintessential FrenchImpressionist landscape – full of vitality and colour, created by Pissarro’s signature dynamic brushwork’.

‘Painted at a defining moment in Pissarro’s career, Prairie à Éragny will enrich the Gallery’s Impressionist collection,introducing a wonderful example of French Impressionism into the collection which has strong holdings of BritishImpressionism. This acquisition will elevate the national and international standing of the State’s collection,’Mitzevich said.

Through the generosity of private donors, together with the James & Diana Ramsay Foundation, the Gallery has beenable to purchase Prairie à Éragny for the Gallery’s permanent collection.

‘I thank those donors who have already given their support to this historic acquisition; over the last eighteen months,through the Gallery Foundation Masterwork Appeal, $4.4 million has been raised. Additional fundraising is essentialto finalise the purchase and public support is now being solicited for its acquisition,’ Mitzevich said.

Camille Pissarro was a defining artist of the French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist movements. He was the onlyartist who participated in all eight Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 to 1886 in Paris. Pissarro’s paintings arecelebrated for the sensation of air, light and transparency they generate through his careful chromatic analysis.

Prairie à Éragny introduces the new Neo-Impressionist style that Pissarro would help to pioneer in the years to come.The resplendent palette of warm pinks and mauves, vivid greens and bright powder blues is iconic, describing thelandscape through the purity of colour juxtapositions, which he applied directly in short brush strokes to canvas.

To support the most ambitious fundraising campaign the Art Gallery Foundation has ever undertaken contact:Charlotte Smith, Foundation Executive Officer, on 08 8207 7040, agsafoundation@artgallery.sa.gov.au or donateonline at http://tinyurl.com/masterworkappeal

Prairie à Éragny will be unveiled at the Art Gallery of South Australia on Friday 22 August 2014 and will be on publicdisplay in the Melrose Wing of European Art from Saturday 23 August 2014.

MEDIA CONTACT:Marika Lucas-Edwards, Communications Manager, Art Gallery of South Australiae lucas-edwards.marika@artgallery.sa.gov.au | t 08 8207 7156 | m 0407 077 102

IMAGE detail: Camille Pissarro, France, 1830-1903, Prairie à Éragny, 1886, Éragny, France, oil on canvas, 59.4 x 73.0