Exhibition, talk highlight day

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Sunday will be a busy day at the Butler Institute of American Art, as one major exhibition will open and the artist featured in another will give a gallery talk.

“Robert Vonnoh, American Impressionist” will open Sunday, with a reception from 1-3 p.m.

This touring exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Madron Gallery in Chicago, and will complement Vonnoh’s masterpiece, “In Flanders Field — Where Soldiers Sleep and Poppies Grow.” The painting is part of the Butler’s own collection and will be displayed with the exhibition, which includes several works by Vonnoh, who is one of America’s premier Impressionist painters.

The curators and the staff of the Madron Gallery will be on hand at the opening reception.

At 2 p.m. Sunday, John Stobart, the octagenarian artist known internationally for his beautifully detailed paintings of ships on oceans and rivers, will give a gallery talk.

Stobart is considered one of the foremost maritime artists of our time, and his work is collected around the world. The Stobart exhibition opened March 28 and runs through June 13.

Vonnoh (1858-1933) was a pioneer in the development of American Impressionism. As an influential teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1890s, he nurtured a taste for Impressionism and self-expression, which proved to be fundamental in the advances of the next generation.

Despite his accomplishments, Vonnoh remains little-known beyond scholarly circles.