Whatcom Museum welcomes classic French paintings on loan from National Gallery of Art
The Whatcom Museum is opening a new exhibit this month, featuring French paintings on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
Bellingham’s Whatcom Museum was chosen as one of 10 museums in the country to be a part of the “Across the Nation” program, where the National Gallery loans out major works of art to be displayed throughout 2025 and 2026, according to a news release form the museum.
“We are very excited to have been selected to participate in ‘Across the Nation. It’s a privilege each time we’re entrusted with an artwork, either for exhibition or safekeeping within our collection, and that the National Gallery would partner with us to share these masterworks with Bellingham is a real honor, ” museum executive director Patricia Leach said in the news release.
The new exhibit, Verdant, will open Friday, Feb. 14 and feature three French paintings: “The Battle of Love” by Paul Cézanne in 1880, “Still Life with Sleeping Woman” by Henri Matisse in 1940 and “Picking Flowers” by Auguste Renoir in 1875.
“In the Pacific Northwest, it is a rare opportunity to experience movement-defining paintings such as these that shifted the paradigm in pictorial representation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Radical in their day, Renoir, Cézanne, and Matisse expanded the ways artists could envision the world, with ripple effects that extended across generations and to the artists well known in our region,” Whatcom Museum chief curator Amy Chaloupka said in the news release.
The exhibit will be open through 2026 in the museum’s Lightcatcher Building.
Whatcom Museum is also adding a new program to provide free museum admission for school field trips. Groups of children grades K-12 can participate in free tours with viewings of Verdant and one additional art exhibit. Schools can register online to participate in a free tour on the museum’s website.
Admission regularly costs $12 per person, $10 for ages 6-17, students, senior and military, $7 for ages 2-5 and free for children under 2 years old.
Whatcom Museum’s Lightcatcher Building is open from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday at 250 Flora St. in Bellingham.
This story was originally published February 14, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
