vernissagen.
A day before the exhibition of paintings on which exhibitors may retouch and varnish their pictures already hung. Now usually denoting a private view of paintings before public exhibition. Cf. varnishing n. 1b.
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society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > painting and drawing > display of pictures > [noun] > exhibition > day before
varnishing dayc1825
vernissage1912
varnishing1951
1912 Queen 20 Apr. 643/2 The Salon Nationale des Beaux Arts. The vernissage was on Saturday, and was marked by the usual miscellaneous crowd of French people and foreigners.
1920 R. Fry Let. 28 Sept. (1972) II. 491 My landscape is accepted all right at the Autumn Salon... I went to..give it some vernis à retoucher at the Vernissage.
1930 Observer 26 Jan. 10 The Indépendants have once more occupied the Grand Palais... The crowd at the vernissage did not seem to be moving so fast.
1958 Spectator 11 July 56/2 Artists were excluded from the vernissage of the twenty-ninth Biennale at Venice.
1961 Times 18 Mar. 3/7 At the height of the season art critics in Paris receive an average of 20 vernissage invitations each week.
1967 Times 3 May 9/7 I found myself completely at sea at the ‘vernissage’ of an exhibition of paintings..at one of London's..art galleries.
1979 M. Soames Clementine Churchill ii. 23 Mlle Henri had procured tickets for a Vernissage.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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n.1912