“Post-Impressionism,” a term invented and used by Roger Fry in the exhibition he organized in London in 1910, became a deeply influential critical and historical construct that was (and sometimes is still) used widely in Britain and America.  Critics and historians often uncritically deployed the highly selective, Franco-centric and exclusively male model that emerged from the writing on Fry’s two post-impressionist exhibitions that privileged Cézanne, Gauguin, van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso, who were regarded as a natural group, and Seurat was soon added to the list. The currency, significance and lasting impact of this canon of foundational artists on subsequent generations of art practice, criticism, art historical education and the marketing, collecting and exhibition of modern art in these two countries has been insufficiently examined. We seek to make fresh comparative and discursive analysis of the substantial impact and pervasive reception of this critical strain of modern art in Britain and America and beyond.

This conference is supported by the Centre for American Art at The Courtauld Institute of Art.