Grand Strand Arts & Culture

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — June 30, 2026 — Thomas Beach Vacations Staff Report

Fifty-eight works by 51 artists — including Cassatt, Degas, Renoir, Chagall, Matisse, and Picasso — drawn from private collections and on view at 3100 South Ocean Boulevard through September 27.

Myrtle Beach Art Museum Opens Rare Impressionist Exhibition, First in 30 Years

The Franklin G. Burroughs–Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum in Myrtle Beach is presenting something it has not offered its visitors in three decades. “A Lasting Impression,” a sweeping exhibition of European Impressionist art drawn from private collections, opened June 13 and runs through September 27, 2026 — giving residents and visitors alike an extended window to see work that rarely leaves the hands of private owners and almost never lands on the Grand Strand.

The exhibition spans the years 1868 to 1983, bringing together 58 works completed by 51 different artists. The roster of names is the kind more commonly found in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris or New York’s Museum of Modern Art than in a museum two blocks from the Atlantic Ocean: Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Cross, among many others whose work shaped the course of modern art.

Patricia Goodwin, the museum’s executive director, described the scope of the collection to local media as something visitors would immediately recognize. It is the first time in the museum’s thirty-year history that Impressionist artists have been on view in this way — and Goodwin is overseeing the exhibition as one of her final acts before retiring from the institution she has led for years.

What the Exhibition Contains

Impressionism emerged in France in the mid-to-late nineteenth century as a direct challenge to the rigid standards of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Rather than historical or mythological subjects rendered in muted tones, the Impressionists painted what they saw in front of them — the shimmer of light on water, the movement of figures in a park, the colors of a French countryside at a specific hour on a specific afternoon. Brushwork became visible. Color became bold. The fleeting moment became the subject.

“A Lasting Impression” traces that movement and its influence, following the thread from the founding Impressionists through the Fauvist, Cubist, and broader modern art movements they set in motion. The 58 works include landscapes, pastoral scenes, and quieter moments of domestic and social life — subjects that the female artists associated with the movement, particularly Cassatt, brought into focus in ways their male contemporaries could not. Museum Curator Liz Miller has noted that the exhibition specifically honors that contribution alongside the better-known names.

The collection on display includes additional major period artists such as Edward Degas, Georges d’Espagnat, Armand Guillaumin, Albert Charles Lebourg, and Ludovic Piette — names less familiar to casual museum-goers but of equal standing within the history of the movement.

Tours, a Raffle, and How to Visit

For visitors who want more than a self-guided walk through the galleries, the museum is offering docent-led tours every Friday morning at 10:30 a.m. The tours are designed to provide deeper context for the works on view — the kind of storytelling that makes a Renoir or a Chagall land differently than it would on its own.

The museum is also running a raffle for two original paintings — an unusual opportunity for visitors to take a piece of the exhibition home with them.

The Franklin G. Burroughs–Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum is located at 3100 South Ocean Boulevard in Myrtle Beach. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.; the museum is closed Mondays. General admission is $8 for adults, $5 for veterans and seniors, and free for visitors 18 and under, active museum members, full-time students, and EBT cardholders. Bank of America cardholders can visit free during the first full weekend of each month through the Museums on Us program. Tickets are available in advance at myrtlebeachartmuseum.org.

A Cultural Anchor on the Grand Strand

Myrtle Beach is not typically the first place people think of when the subject turns to fine art, but the Franklin G. Burroughs–Simeon B. Chapin Art Museum has spent three decades making the case that it should be. With eleven galleries that rotate throughout the year and a programming calendar that includes artist receptions, lectures, workshops, and classes for adults and children, the museum has built something genuinely uncommon on the South Carolina coast: a place where the work on the walls keeps changing and keeps mattering.

“A Lasting Impression” is the kind of exhibition that justifies a trip on its own. For visitors already planning to spend time in North Myrtle Beach — staying along Cherry Grove Beach, Ocean Drive, Crescent Beach, or Windy Hill — it is a short drive south and an afternoon well spent. The exhibition closes September 27, which means the entire summer travel season offers a chance to see it.

A vacation on the North Myrtle Beach coast puts art, dining, history, and the Atlantic all within easy reach. Thomas Beach Vacations offers a carefully curated selection of oceanfront home rentals and oceanfront condo rentals for families and travelers looking to make the most of their time on the Grand Strand. Call our local team at (843) 273-3001 or explore available properties at northmyrtlebeachvacations.com.