Encompassing a variety of genres and media, the Nassau County Museum of Art’s permanent collection ranges from vivid nineteenth-century Impressionism to stately Gilded Age portraiture to modern artworks by both established and emerging Contemporary artists.

Oil paintings by renowned artists Maximilien Luce and Édouard Vuillard, in addition to hidden gems by Hubert LeClerck and Claude-Émile Schuffenecker, are much-admired examples of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century art.

An elegant portrait by Irving Ramsey Wiles of a beautifully dressed anonymous sitter, a stylish portrait by Frederick Warren Freer of his wife Margaret Cecilia Keenan, and a vivacious painting by Louis Comfort Tiffany of oxen reluctantly coaxed into fieldwork remind the viewer of the Museum’s roots as a Gilded Age mansion and farm.

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism are evidenced through Luce’s vibrant scene of a bustling Dutch port city; Schuffenecker’s whimsical and dreamlike fantasy of an Arcadia-like French landscape outside Paris; Vuillard’s intimate portrait of a working-class mother and her young child; and Georges D’Espagnat’s colorful floral still-life.

This display culminates with a lively and large midcentury carnival scene of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, by the Belgian modernist Hubert LeClerck. Through these selections, the Museum presents an alluring narrative by featuring the broad scope of its eclectic collection that incorporates both traditional and modern painting and illustrates the avant-garde shift in artistic style.