What stories do Impressionist landscapes hold of a land transformed by rapid urban and industrial change? The early waves of industrialisation have altered the French landscape in the 19th century. From new modes of high-speed transportation and shifting fashion trends to crowded urban streets and leisure-filled suburban retreats, the impressionist artists were attentive not only to the shifting light and seasons, but also to the human forces reshaping the landscapes. These scenes of modernity were underpinned by the extraction of natural resources, reminding us that every transformation carried a material cost.
Held in conjunction with the exhibition Into the Modern: Impressionism from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this online talk by Genevieve Westerby will examine how Impressionist artists engaged with the complex relationship between industralisation and the environment, with a particular focus on sand extraction. Through close readings of landscape paintings by artists such as Alfred Sisley and Armand Guillaumin, Westerby will explore the material status of sand as a finite natural resource, the shifting methods of its extraction, and its significance. The talk will be followed by a conversation with exhibition co-curator Dr Phoebe Scott, Senior Curator and Deputy Director (Content Publishing).
*Please note that is an online talk taking place via Zoom.
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When: 12 Feb 2026, 7.30–8.30pm - Suitable For: Adults, Families, Visitors with accessibility needs, Students and Educators, Young Adults
- Where: Online via Zoom
- Ticket information: Free, registration required
About the Speakers
Genevieve Westerby is a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware, studying European art of the long nineteenth century. Her dissertation examines late-nineteenth-century French landscape painting in the context of river engineering and its ecological effects. Prior to her doctoral studies, Genevieve was a curatorial researcher at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she worked on the exhibitions Manet and Modern Beauty (2019) and Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist (2017) and co-edited the Manet, Gauguin, Caillebotte, and Pissarro digital scholarly catalogues. More recently, she has held curatorial internships at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art in DC.
Phoebe Scott is Senior Curator and Deputy Director (Content Publishing) at National Gallery Singapore. Her curatorial projects include Between Declarations and Dreams: Art of Southeast Asia since the 19th Century (2015), which is the inaugural exhibition of the Gallery’s Southeast Asia galleries; Reframing Modernism: Painting from Southeast Asia, Europe and Beyond (2016); Familiar Others: Emiria Sunassa, Eduardo Masferré and Yeh Chi Wei, 1940s–70s (2022); and most recently, City of Others: Asian Artists in Paris, 1920s-1940s (2025). She holds a PhD in Art History and Theory from the University of Sydney on modern Vietnamese art.
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