Poplars, Sunset at Eragny

Original Language TitlePeupliers, Soleil couchant a Eragny

Alternate TitlePeupliers; soleil couchant

Alternate TitlePeupliers à Éragny, soleil couchant

Artist Camille Pissarro (French, 1830 - 1903)

Date1894

MediumOil on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 28 15/16 × 23 7/8 inches (73.5 × 60.64 cm)
Framed: 36 1/2 × 31 1/2 × 3 1/8 inches (92.71 × 80.01 × 7.94 cm)

Credit LineGift of the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust

Object number44-41/2

Signedl.r.: "C. Pissarro. 94."

On View

On view

Gallery Location

Collections

European Art

Terms

DescriptionEvening landscape with slender, bare, black trees through which is seen rosy gold sky.Exhibition History

Exhibition History

Exposition d’œuvres récentes de Camille Pissarro, Galeries Durand-Ruel, Paris, April 15–May 9, 1896, no. 25, as Peupliers; soleil couchant.

Oak Hall Exhibition, Oak Hall, Kansas City, MO, October 5–9, 1927, no cat.

Memorial Exhibition of the Paintings from the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Collection, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Arts, Kansas City, MO, opened November 18, 1934, no cat.

Exhibition, Winfield, KS, Public Schools, 1942, no cat.

Impressionism: Selections from Five American Museums, The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, November 4–December 31, 1989; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, January 27–March 25, 1990; The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 21–June 17, 1990; The Saint Louis Art Museum, July 14–September 9, 1990; The Toledo Museum of Art, September 30–November 25, 1990 (Kansas City only), hors cat., as Poplars, Sunset at Ergany.

Among Friends: Guillaumin, Cezanne, and Pissarro, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 28, 2021–January 23, 2022, no cat.

Gallery Label

Poplars, Sunset at Eragny features one of Camille Pissarro's preferred motifs, that of a distant view almost totally obscured by a screen of trees in the foreground. In this late work, however, Pissarro is more concerned with creating a mood than with using the lines of the trees to work out compositional structure. Clearly fascinated with the effects of fading light and encroaching shadows from a setting sun, Pissarro evokes a reflective, dreamlike atmosphere through form and color. This expressive quality is similar to that found in the landscapes of such Post-Impressionist artists as Gauguin and van Gogh, on view nearby. Poplars, Sunset at Eragny is one of the few works in the collection that belonged originally to the Museum's founding Nelson family.

Provenance

Purchased from the artist by Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, stock no. 3222, as Peupliers, soleil couchant, April 10, 1895–May 5, 1896 [1];

Purchased from Durand-Ruel by William Rockhill Nelson (1841–1915), Kansas City, MO, May 5, 1896–April 13, 1915;

To his wife, Ida Nelson (née Houston, 1853–1921), Kansas City, MO, 1915–October 6, 1921;

By descent to her daughter, Laura Kirkwood (née Nelson, 1883–1926), Kansas City, MO, 1921–February 27, 1926;

Inherited by her husband, Irwin Kirkwood (1878–1927), Kansas City, MO, 1926–August 29, 1927;

Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust, Kansas City, MO, 1927–June 27, 1944 [2];

Gift of the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Residuary Trust to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1944.

Notes

[1] See email from Paul-Louis Durand-Ruel and Flavie Durand-Ruel, Durand-Ruel et Cie, Paris, to Nicole Myers, NAMA, January 11, 2016, NAMA curatorial file.

[2] As early as 1927, art advisor to the NAMA trustees, R. A. Holland, noted the painting in the contents of Oak Hall, Nelson’s mansion, as one to keep for the budding museum’s collection; see letter from Fred C. Vincent, Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trustee, to Herbert V. Jones, NAMA Trustee, December 28, 1927, NAMA curatorial files. However, the painting was not given to the museum until Laura Nelson Kirkwood’s household goods and personal effects were finally dispersed in 1944; see letter from Fred C. Vincent, Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trustee, to Ethlyne Jackson, NAMA acting director, June 20, 199, NAMA curatorial files. Just prior to that, the painting was withdrawn from the sale, Catalogue: Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trust of Paintings, Etchings, Antique Furniture, Oriental Rugs, Silverware, Antique War Weapons, and Old Ornaments, Kansas City, 1944, no. 1, as Woodland scene.

Published References

Exposition d’œuvres récentes de Camille Pissarro, exh. cat. (Paris: Galeries Durand-Ruel, 1896), 17, as Peupliers; soleil couchant.

“Laura Nelson-Kirkwood,” Kansas City Star 46, no. 164 (February 28, 1926): 1A.

“Oak Hall Open Wednesday,” Kansas City Star 48, no. 15 (October 2, 1927): 2A.

Possibly Paul V. Beckley, “Art News,” Kansas City Journal-Post, no. 193 (December 17, 1933): 2C.

“Art,” Kansas City Star 55, no. 62 (November 18, 1934): 12A.

“Special Lecture Announcement,” News Flashes 1, no. 3 (The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Atkins Museum of Fine Arts) (November 18–December 1, 1934): 1.

M[inna] K. P[owell], “Art: Paintings from Oak Hall Viewed by Public for First Time—A Large Ribera, Several Interesting Dutch Canvases, Portraits of the English School and a Few French Moderns Are Shown,” Kansas City Times 97, no. 277 (November 19, 1934): 8.

Catalogue: Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trust of Paintings, Etchings, Antique Furniture, Oriental Rugs, Silverware, Antique War Weapons, and Old Ornaments (Kansas City: Trustees of the Laura Nelson Kirkwood Trust, 1944), 5, as Woodland scene.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 261, as Landscape.

Henry C. Haskell, “Scanning the Arts,” Kansas City Star 85, no. 157 (February 21, 1965): 1D.

Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 258, as Landscape.

Donald Hoffmann, “Out of the Dark and Into the Light: Pissarro Landscape ‘Found’ at Nelson,” Kansas City Star 109, no. 7 (September 25, 1988): 1D, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

“New at the Nelson: Museum ‘Discovers’ Pissarro Painting,” Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (October 1988): 1–3, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

Michael Churchman and Scott Erbes, High Ideals and Aspirations: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1933–1993 (Kansas City: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 34, as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

Bernard Denvir, Chronicle of Impressionism: An Intimate Diary of the Lives and World of the Great Artists (London: Thames and Hudson, 1993), 279.

Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collections (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 12, 212, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

Kristie C. Wolferman, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Culture Comes to Kansas City (Columbia, MO: Columbia University of Missouri Press, 1993), 186–88, (repro.), as Morning, Sunlight on the Snow, Eragny.

“Know your Museum Tour ‘Let the Sun Shine In!,’” Newsletter (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (Winter 2003): 10, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Pissarro: Catalogue critique des peintures; Critical Catalogue of Paintings (Paris: Wildenstein Institute Publications, 2005), no. 1056, pp. 1:364, 3:675, (repro.), as Peupliers à Eragny, soleil couchant.

Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), 125, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

Possibly Cornelia Homburg et al., Vincent Van Gogh: Timeless Country, Modern City, exh cat. (Milano: Skira, 2010).

Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, Camille Pissarro, Rouen: Peindre la ville (Rouen: Éditions point de vues, 2013), 133, as Peupliers, soleil couchant.

Catherine Futter et al., Bloch Galleries: Highlights from the Collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2016), 97, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

David Scott Kastan, On Color (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018), 142, (repro.), as Poplars, Sunset at Eragny.

Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Camille Pissarro, Poplars, Sunset at Eragny, 1894,” catalogue entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.646.5407.

Julian Zugazagoitia and Laura Spencer. Director's Highlights: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Celebrating 90 Years, ed. Kaitlyn Bunch (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), 48, (repro.).

Information about a particular artwork or image, including provenance information, is based upon historic information and may not be currently accurate or complete. Research on artwork and images is an ongoing process, and the information about a particular artwork or image may not reflect the most current information available to the Museum. If you notice a mistake or have additional information about a particular artwork or image, please e-mail provenance@nelson-atkins.org.