Muse d'Orsay art heads to Vancouver

The Vancouver Art Gallery is to host a major touring exhibition from Paris's Muse d'Orsay that includes work by Pissaro, Gauguin and Monet.

The Modern Woman: Drawings by Degas, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Other Masterpieces from the Muse d'Orsay is the first major touring exhibition by the renowned gallery, the VAG announced on Tuesday.

VAG director Kathleen Bartels said the Vancouver gallery worked with the French museum to curate the exhibit of 19th century French artists which focuses on the female form.

The exhibit captures the dramatic evolution of artistic practice in the 1800s, as well as the increasing independence of women in French society.

Artists such as Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec capture women in the world of theatre and dance, while Pierre Bonnard, Henri Fantin-Latour and Georges Seurat show women at home, engaged in domestic pursuits.

Almost 100 drawings in charcoal, coloured pencil and pastel are included in the exhibit.

It runs June 5 to Sept. 6, 2010.