ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Asheville Art Museum is partnering with the Bank of America to bring a bank of American masterpieces to the heart of downtown Asheville. A new exhibit, “In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940,” collecting over 120 works from the Bank of America Collection, will open Feb. 7 and continue through June 29, 2026. The collection is on loan to the Asheville Art Museum through the Bank of America Art in our Communities program.

Mary Edith Alexander, Bank of America Art Collection Manager, left, with Bank of America Asheville President David Dowd at a preview of “In a New Light: American Impressionism 1870-1940,” a Bank of America Collection exhibit at the Asheville Art Museum.

 

Impressionism, a style recognizable by its visible brush strokes and scenes capturing transitory moments of everyday life, was reflective of the great changes sweeping across the United States as industrialization and expansion took root. “In a New Light” is a Impressionist journey through American iconography, its walls filled with paintings capturing the energy of cities, canyons and countrymen of the United States as the country entered the 20th century.

“It was an era of rapid change. There was war, industrialization, economic instability,” said Asheville Art Museum Assistant Curator Robin Klaus. “This really gets to the idea that Impressionism for American artists and audiences evolved into something that was nostalgic. It provided a bit of reassurance and comfort for people who were experiencing all this rapid change, and it really represented an America that was idealized, and yet, you know, still new, while looking to the past.”

Impressionism is often defined by visible brushstrokes in paintings of the era.

Just like the vast variety of landscapes depicted in the art gallery, there are all kinds of takeaways to draw from “In a New Light.”

For Pam Myers, executive director of the Asheville Art Museum, in many ways “In a New Light” complements the permanent works on display in the museum.

“What’s great about the Bank’s willingness to share this material with institutions around the country is that each institution has an opportunity to tweak it and bring its own curatorial sensibility to it in relation to its own permanent collection,” Myers said. “You can walk across the hall and enter our permanent collection and see works by similar art with the same artists, but certainly at the same time period. 
There are 127 paintings in these galleries that really add depth to the discussion that we present in our permanent collection.”

“The Old Farmyard, Toodleums,” a 1922 painting by George Wesley Bellows. Courtesy of the Bank of America Collection.
Work on display for “In a New Light.”
An American Impressionist painting from the Bank of America Collection.

David Dowd, the president of Bank of America Asheville, sees the exhibit as a reflection of the Asheville community. For Dowd, the changing landscape of the United State depicted in the paintings is an energy he also feels in Western North Carolina following Hurricane Helene.

“I think that’s a really good way to kind of make that tie for folks that are coming into the museum, whether they are local to Western North Carolina, or they’re visiting the area,” Dowd said.

Landscapes dominate the subject matter of “In a New Light.”

 

To Klaus, the gallery is an illumination of an underappreciated branch of the Impressionism movement.

“Lots of people know and love French Impressionism, and this tells the lesser known story about how American artists were engaged with the techniques and the methods and the subjects here,” Klaus said. “So, that also is, for me, ‘in a new light’ that we’re hearing this lesser known, untold story.”

For more information about the exhibit, visit www.ashevilleart.org/exhibitions/in-a-new-light-american-impressionism-1870-1940.