A Very Private Collection: Janice H. Levin's Impressionist Pictures

This intimate exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to see some thirty-five Impressionist works that graced the Fifth Avenue apartment of Janice H. Levin. A longtime supporter of the arts in New York, Janice Levin was an Honorary Trustee of The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1993 until her death in 2001. A number of significant works from the collection were given to American museums, including the Metropolitan. In reuniting these works, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity for visitors to experience the distinctly personal character of a private collection, which was lovingly acquired over a period of some forty years for the Levins's appreciation and enjoyment in their New York City residence.

Highlights from the Levin collection include Claude Monet's view of his garden at Argenteuil (1873; now National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.) and the Cliffs at Pourville (1882; now Museum of Modern Art, New York), as well as works by Edgar Degas. Degas's pastel Portraits at the Stock Exchange (1876; now Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) depicts the financier and collector Ernest May, while Levin's three other works by Degas—one pastel and two bronzes—depict ballerinas stretching. (Levin was a longtime board member and benefactor of the School of American Ballet.) The Levin collection also includes lush landscapes by Pierre Bonnard, Eugène Boudin, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as well as charming interior scenes by Berthe Morisot and Édouard Vuillard.

The exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are made possible by The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation.