National Gallery Singapore Showcases Impressionist Art in "Into the Modern" Exhibition

It’s not every day that Southeast Asia gets its own showcase of the great Impressionists. But that’s exactly what Into the Modern achieves—a collaboration between the National Gallery Singapore and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston that brings over a hundred works by 25 of the movement’s most celebrated names, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cézanne.

“This is the largest exhibition of French Impressionism to come to Southeast Asia to date,” says Phoebe Scott, senior curator at National Gallery Singapore, in an interview with Preview. “It introduces many of the key artists from the movement, but also makes a very important argument—that in looking at Impressionism, we’re seeing the works of the first generation of artists to capture the experience of modernity as it began to unfold.”

Phoebe explains that Into the Modern is as much about beauty as it is about context. “We think that this experience of modernity—things like urbanization, environmental change, and labor—are ideas that are still really important for us today.”

The exhibition is divided into seven sections, each showing a different facet of Impressionism’s evolution—from the forests that inspired early painters to Monet’s final meditations on light.

The exhibition opens in the forests of Fontainebleau, where mid-19th-century painters like Théodore Rousseau and a young Claude Monet set out to capture nature before industrialization changed it forever. Projected archival images place you among the trees, grounding the movement in its origins outdoors.

Here, the story shifts to painting under open skies. Artists such as Renoir, Degas, and Monet embraced light as both subject and challenge, chasing fleeting colors and the rhythms of everyday life.

Now, the calm of the countryside meets the pulse of progress. Expanding railways and coastal travel turned rivers and ports into subjects of fascination with labor and leisure that seem wholly modern.

At the heart of Impressionism was community. Through Camille Pissarro’s prints and paintings, this section traces how shared ideas—about light, equality, and the everyday—shaped a movement that thrived on collaboration.

In this section, Paris takes the spotlight. Artists turned their gaze toward its cafés, boulevards, and private interiors, translating the energy of a changing city onto canvas. A rediscovered self-portrait by Victorine Meurent—long known as Manet’s model, here revealed as an artist herself—reframes one of art history’s most familiar faces.

Not all revolutions happened outdoors. Inside their studios, painters like Berthe Morisot reinvented still life through texture and restraint, proving that the everyday could be just as radical as a city street.

The exhibition ends in near silence, with nine of Monet’s masterpieces. From his Poppy Field near Giverny to The Water Lily Pond, these paintings shimmer with the sense of time passing.

At a press conference, National Gallery Singapore Director Dr. Eugene Tan described the exhibition as both a continuation and an expansion. “Even though [Impressionist artworks are] known as being very popular and beautiful paintings, [the works] had a very serious intent. They challenged the existing social and artistic conventions of their time. That’s something we wanted to remind our audiences, that modern art may not seem as exciting as contemporary art today, but every artist of their time was constantly questioning conventions and innovating new forms of art.”

The presentation itself follows that spirit, according to Phoebe Scott. “We really wanted to make the connection between what the Impressionists were witnessing and what they’re experiencing, and what people still see and witness in modernity today," she said. "So it was very important to us that the design didn’t feel too remote in time, that it had a sort of contemporary feeling about it, and also that the archives could be really tangible.”

The exhibition is housed at the National Gallery Singapore, which turns ten 10 years. Located in the Civic District within the former Supreme Court and City Hall buildings, the museum has become a steady presence in the region’s art landscape.

As with any major exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore, Into the Modern doesn’t end when you leave the galleries.

The acclaimed French patisserie brings its signature artistry to the Gallery from November 14 to December 31, 2025. For the occasion, Pierre Hermé Paris unveils limited-edition macaron sets inspired by two featured artworks: Renoir’s Dance at Bougival and Pissarro’s Two Peasant Women in a Meadow. The boxes are miniature keepsakes in themselves—elegant, collectible, and almost too pretty to eat—filled with flavors like rose, lychee, and raspberry (Ispahan) or deep chocolate and vanilla.

Just across the street, Fairmont Singapore’s ANTI:DOTE turns art into gastronomy with a high tea menu that echoes the colors and textures of the Impressionist palette. Available from November 6, 2025 to January 31, 2026, Executive Pastry Chef Yong Ming Choong and Junior Sous Chef Ong Sze Ling reinterpret the spirit of Monet and Morisot through edible detail—pastel-glazed pastries, airy cakes, and cocktails that shimmer like a reflection on water.

The Gallery Store has also joined in, offering exhibition-exclusive merchandise. The collection includes the Into the Modern catalog, tote bags, umbrellas, and art-inspired home pieces.