Picasso, Monet on display in Portland Art Museum's new exhibits
Both exhibits will be on display through Sunday, Sept. 15.
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The Portland Art Museum’s freshest exhibits showcase pieces from some of the biggest names in art, like Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso.
“Monet to Matisse: French Moderns” and “Pissarro to Picasso: Masterworks on Loan from the Kirkland Family Collection” will open to the public starting Saturday, June 8, but the museum gave a sneak peek of the exhibits on Thursday afternoon.
Portland Art Musem's “Monet to Matisse: French Moderns” will be on display from June 8 to Sept. 15. (KOIN) 
Claude Monet's "House of Parliament" on display at the Portland Art Museum. (KOIN) 
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's "Young Women of Sparta" on display at the Portland Art Museum. (KOIN) 
Auguste Rodin's "She Who Was the Helmet Maker's Once-Beautiful Wife" on display at the Portland Art Museum. (KOIN) 
Édouard Vuillard's "Thadée Natanson" on display at the Portland Art Museum. (KOIN) 
Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "The Vineyards at Cagnes" on display at the Portland Art Museum. (KOIN) 
Giovanni Boldini's "Portrait of a Lady" and Kees van Dongen's "W.S. Davenport" on display at the Portland Art Museum. (KOIN)
“Monet to Matisse” features around 60 masterpieces that characterized French art from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century. The collection borrowed from the Brooklyn Museum is separated into four categories: landscape, still life, the nude, and portraits and figures.
The artwork is featured on a backdrop of pastel hues. Lloyd DeWitt, PAM’s pre-1930 European and American art curator who was hired in January, told KOIN 6 the paint selection adds to the exhibit just as much as the individual pieces.
“We fussed about the colors,” DeWitt said. “We looked at what had worked for this exhibition in other venues, but we wanted something that was also very upbeat and positive.”
The curator added that the color-blocked backdrop helped his efforts to distinguish “Monet to Matisse” from “Pissarro to Picasso.” The latter exhibit was loaned to PAM from the Kirklands, a Los Angeles family with an extensive art collection.
According to the museum, some of the pieces haven’t been showcased to the public in decades.
“It's very nice that they offered to lend it to us right at the same time that we're having [the Monet exhibit],” he said. “I really hope that they come and see it because I think we've done a beautiful job of installing it so it was a very hard-working crew here. I can say we’ve got some amazing professionals.”
Both exhibits will be on display through Sunday, Sept. 15. General admission tickets into PAM cost $25 for adults.