Impressionism and beyond: masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts at the Ara Pacis

The great exhibition Impressionism and Beyond. Masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts, open until May 3, 2026. An event of international importance that brings 52 masterpieces of modern European art to Rome, offering the Italian public a rare opportunity to admire works that hardly leave the United States.

Promoted by Roma Capitale - Department of Culture and the Capitoline Superintendence of Cultural Heritage, the exhibition is co-produced and organized by the Capitoline Superintendence with MondoMostre, with the support of Zètema Progetto Cultura. The curatorship is entrusted to Ilaria Miarelli Mariani and Claudio Zambianchi. The works come from the Detroit Institute of Arts, one of the most important museum collections in the United States.

From Impressionism to the birth of modernity

The exhibition spans a period of time ranging from the mid-nineteenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century, documenting a crucial phase in the history of European art. At the center, the Impressionist revolution, with works by Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, flanked by masterpieces by Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, which testify to the overcoming of academic models and attention to modern life, light and the immediate perception of reality.

The exhibition continues with the transition to Post-Impressionism, where color and form acquire a new expressive autonomy. Vincent van Gogh's paintings translate reality into an emotional and vibrant painting, anticipating the great artistic transformations of the twentieth century.

Paris, the avant-gardes and the new century

A central section is dedicated to Paris in the early decades of the twentieth century, the world capital of art and a laboratory of experimentation. Pablo Picasso's works tell the different phases of his career, from the pink period to cubism, up to the portraits of his maturity. Alongside him, Henri Matisse's paintings show a stylistic evolution that combines formal rigor and chromatic sensuality.

The Parisian panorama is completed by the works of María Blanchard and Juan Gris, together with the protagonists of the Paris School such as Amedeo Modigliani and Chaïm Soutine, central figures of an artistic season marked by profound cultural contaminations.

The German avant-garde and the dramatic face of the twentieth century

The final part of the exhibition is dedicated to the German avant-garde, with works by Wassily Kandinsky, Max Beckmann, Oskar Kokoschka and Emil Nolde. Paintings that restore the tension and drama of Europe in the early twentieth century, telling the role of art as an instrument of testimony in an era marked by wars and crises.

EXHIBITION INFORMATION Impressionism and beyond. Masterpieces from the Detroit Institute of Arts

• Venue: Museo dell'Ara Pacis - Exhibition space, Via di Ripetta 180 / Lungotevere in Augusta (corner of via Tomacelli), Rome.
• Dates: December 4, 2025 - May 3, 2026.
• Hours: every day 9.30 a.m.-7.30 p.m.; 24 and 31 December 9.30 a.m.-2.00 p.m.; last admission one hour before closing; closed 25 December and 1 May.
• Tickets (exhibition only): full €15; reduced €13; presale €1.