Impressionist art tour of France, US to mark 150 years

Among the works on the US tour will be Monet's 'Impression, Soleil Levant' (Impression, Rising Sun) of 1872. It was an art critic's sarcastic response to the painting that gave the Impressionist movement its name. Photo: Handout

The world's leading museum of Impressionist art is sending an unprecedented number of its masterpieces on tour in France and the United States to mark the movement's 150th anniversary, it announced recently.

Impressionism was born in April 1874 when a group of painters including Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Paul Cezanne - tired of being rejected by the government-backed Paris Salon - held their own independent show.