Thursday, July 11, 2013

Te party

It’s been four years since Te Papa last had an Impressionist exhibition from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. That was Monet and the Impressionists an exhibition that stumped up 140,000 visits according to the 2009 annual report or around 1,500 a day for its three month run. 

The new show slated to open on Friday hasn’t got quite the same sting in its title. Colour & Light: Impressionism from France & America sounds a bit like one of those lectures you skipped in Art History (well we did anyway) but Te Papa will have high hopes for it. A crowd pleaser could give a significant kick start to the next financial year‘s attendance figures and this time they're playing the long game: 183 days (it’s more of a long-term loan) as opposed to 92 days for the last Boston effort. 


As we have mentioned before, the Boston Museum of Fine Art uses extensive loans from its collection as a major revenue stream. In an odd mirroring of Te Papa the Bellagio Gallery, located in the eponymous casino in Las Vegas, has just closed Claude Monet: Impressions of Light on loan from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and opened Warhol out West from the Andy Warhol Foundation.