Degas to Chagall: Important Loans from the Armand Hammer Foundation

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is delighted to present a selection of important paintings that have been generously lent by the Armand Hammer Foundation. The mandate of this organization is to share the works bequeathed to them by their founders with the public by lending to museums throughout the country. 

The paintings on view from the Hammer Foundation represent just a small fraction of the ravishing collection put together by Dr. Armand Hammer (1898-1990), perhaps best known for the extraordinary works of art he donated to his namesake, the Hammer Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles from 1965 through 1990. These works beautifully complement many of the most beloved works of art in the Museum’s collection of 19th-century French art and have been installed so as to demonstrate this easy dialogue. Works by Corot, Chagall, Degas, Fantin-Latour, Morisot, and Renoir from the Hammer Foundation are presented side-by-side with canvases by the same or related masters from the Museum’s own permanent collection. This exhibition thus presents a representative overview of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism with a nod to the Barbizon school artists who prepared their way.