BENTONVILLE - The last names of Paul Cezanne, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin and other European masters are in bold red letters wrapped around the grayish square columns at the entrance to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art.

Wait a minute. Isn’t this supposed to be a museum devoted to American art?

It is.

But the new exhibition, “The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism” from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, gives insight on the inspirations and development of modernism in American art.

To be sure we all get that message, Crystal Bridges added a companions how in an adjoining gallery, “The European Connection,” featuring American artists from the permanent collection such as Marsden Hartley, Arthur Garfield Dove, Agnes Pelton and Max Weber.

“The European Connection” also offers the first public showing of three works by Alfred Henry Maurer since they were added to the museum’s collection.

After soaking in the array of some 62 works of modern art - which began as European artists moved away from representational styles in the 19th century - viewers can stroll into the adjacent gallery and see how these artists inspired the Americans, some of whom studied in Europe.

This “conversation” of sorts between the two shows brings the relationship between European and American modernists into eye-popping clarity as the viewer experiences first-hand an important era of American art history.

After seeing the paintings of Cezanne, who is described by Crystal Bridges assistant curator Manuela Well-Off-Man as a father of modernism, it’s easy to see his influence in the works of Americans Hartley and Weber. Matisse emerges as an inspiration for American modernist Dove.

“Everything was realistic until Cezanne,” Well-Off-Man says.

As one enters “The European Connection,” to the left hang the three Maurer works. Two Heads (circa 1928) shows the influence of Picasso, cubism and expressionism in the elongation of the heads and the mask-like expressions.

Paley, founder of CBS radio and TV networks, was “a zealot of modern art,” says Ramona Bronkar Bannayan, senior deputy director of exhibitions and collections at the Museum of Modern Art. He began collecting in the mid-1930s and was an active member of the museum’s board. His collection includes modernist styles such as French impressionism, post-impressionism, cubism and fauvism. Paley and photographer Alfred Stieglitz were early champions of modernism.

Paley bought modern art for his home because he loved it, Bannayan said.

That is abundantly clear as one experiences the works he acquired. This is a very intimate show of mostly smaller-scaled pieces rather than the larger works often seen in museums.

The works are presented chronologically, the walls painted in shades of gray. The informative quotations, other painted text and artists’ names pop off the walls.

A few of the highlights:

Cezanne’s fascinating, dense and powerful landscape L’Estaque was revolutionary and controversial in its time. Painted between 1879 and 1883, the masterful landscape broke with the traditional smooth painting style by using visible brush strokes that added a feeling of immediacy, along with directing the eyes to the work’s focal point, in the near foreground. His fascination with structure is clear in his depictions of cliffs, trees and the shore. This is a work that, like many in this exhibition, reveals much the longer one remains open to it.

There are three more Cezanne pieces, including a drawing of his wife and a watercolor. Paley acquired L’Estaque from Claude Monet’s son; Cezanne’s Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat was bought from the artist’s son.

Andre Derain’s vibrant colors and distinctive brushwork make his 1906 work Bridge Over the Riou explode off the canvas. A master of fauvism, Derain has a clear association with Matisse.

Picasso’s Boy Leading a Horse (from 1905) is an early work in his Rose Period, when the Spanish artist moved from cool and melancholy to warmer colors. One of the exhibition’s largest works, it hangs on a wall facing a room devoted to cubism, with words by Francis Bacon and Georges Braque, among others.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was intrigued by a gentleman’s bristly red beard; so much so, he painted a particularly charming portrait of the man, M. de Lauradour, an oil and gouache on cardboard. The 1897 portrait presents a rather roguish dandy gazing toward a bed, on top of which is a pair of women’s pink shoes. It is a rather formal pose, recalling American expatriate James A. McNeill Whistler, an artist Toulouse-Lautrec appreciated.

Edgar Degas’ forceful 1905 charcoal drawing Two Dancers brings the viewer right into their company. The forms are abstracted, with an emphasis on the dancers’ arms and shoulders. Known for his many works on dancers, Degas’ attention to anatomy and, in this case, the intersection of two dancers’ bodies, intrigues.

Gauguin’s rich colors and folkloric depth make The Seed of the Areoi, from 1892, unforgettable among his Tahitian works. His Washerwomen (1888) was painted during his stay in Arles, France, with Vincent van Gogh.

Matisse’s rich colors and imaginative use of patterns that intersect and juxtapose with each other make Seated Woman With a Vase of Amaryllis (1941) especially vibrant and memorable. The thick black outlines make the colors pop even more.

A number of sculptures enhance the exhibit, particularly Auguste Rodin’s delicate Iris, one of several of his bronzes.

Paley, who died in 1990 and willed his collection to the New York museum, had a sharp eye; he gathered a number of masterful works by modernism’s leading lights.

And, if viewing the American modernists in “The European Connection” makes you hungry for more, take time to visit “The Stieglitz Collection” in the museum’s main galleries. It will further enrich the experience.

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“The William S. Paley Collection: A Taste for Modernism” Through July 7, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, 600 Museum Way, Bentonville Hours: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday, Thursday, Saturday-Sunday; 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesday and Friday Admission: $8 for adults, free for members and ages 18 and under. Regular museum admission is free.

Info: (479) 418-5700; crystalbridges.org

Style, Pages 49 on 03/23/2014