Impressionism & Post-Impressionism Central-Eastern Europe

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About Impressionism & Post-Impressionism Central-Eastern Europe

Impressionism was born in France and at its beginning was little understood and much misunderstood by the French, yet much appreciated by foreign collectors.

The word "Impressionism" was coined after a painting entitled "Impression, soleil levant" by Claude MONET which was purchased by Dr georges de Bellio a Romanian medical doctor, art collector and friend of Impressionist painters. His collection makes the core of the Marmottan Museum in Paris. De Bellio, born in Bucharest as George Bellu was of Aromanian (Vlach) origin and his family was ennobled by the Austrian emperor Francis II after the Napoleonic wars. De Bellio is credited also for having secured for the French nation the iconic impressionist painting "Olympia" which is now in the Orsay museum in Paris, by organising a public lottery to secure its purchase - it was at the time a painting much maligned which caused a public scandal for its departure from the accepted norms of the society and of the arts.

This group will focuses on Impressionist and post-Impressionist painters of Central-Eastern Europe from countries which until recently were behind the 'Iron Courtain' (the Communist block) and before WWI part of which were in the Habsburg Empire, Prussia, Russia, Ottoman Empires and a few independent states of the Balkans.
In today's political geography these contries are:
Albania, Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech republic, Estonia, Finland, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Letonia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine,

painters from these countries, most of whom went to study in France and returned to their native countries are little known abroad and little represented in foreign museums, yet their contribution to European and world art is significant.