By the late 1870s, when this exhibition begins, Édouard Manet had become recognized as a painter of modern life. He had long looked to historical subjects and style for inspiration but in the 1870s grew more and more immersed in the now—eventually proposing a radical new alignment of modern art with fashionable femininity. While he continued to pursue highly finished, heroically scaled paintings intended for the Salon throughout these later years (a time also marked by health problems and limited mobility), he simultaneously approached smaller works more fluidly and spontaneously, taking up pastel and watercolor while unapologetically embracing beauty and visual pleasure.
This exhibition is the first to focus on this important period in the artist’s career, bringing together an impressive array of portraits of fashionable women—favorite actresses and models, bourgeois women of his acquaintance, and his wife—as well as intimate male friends. Among these are two striking paintings, one of the young model-actress Jeanne Demarsy and the other of his friend Méry Laurent. Called Jeanne (Spring) and Autumn (Méry Laurent), the pair comprises the only two completed works in a project to portray the seasons through paintings of stylishly attired women.
Autumn (Méry Laurent), 1881 or 1882
Édouard Manet. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, Nancy, France. Photo by P. Mignot.
Supplementing this display are the delicate and rarely seen letters Manet wrote to his friends, featuring exquisite illustrations of fruits and flowers; garden pictures, which themselves often feature elegantly attired women; and flower studies, consummate expressions of Manet’s favorite subjects at the end of his life. Punctuating the presentation are large-scale multifigure paintings, including In the Conservatory and Boating, both shown in the 1879 Salon, which focus attention on modern social and gender relations. Together these works showcase both Manet’s responsiveness to the moment and the continual flowering of his artistry.
More Late Works by Manet
In the final years of his life, Manet increasingly turned his attention to contemporary fashion and femininity.
Portrait of Émilie Ambre as Carmen, 1880
Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of Edgar Scott, 1964. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Boating, 1874–75
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929, 29.100.115
Flowers in a Crystal Vase, about 1882
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
In the Conservatory, about 1877–79
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie
Letter to Madame Jules Guillemet, July 1880
Private collection. Photo by Saint Honoré Art Consulting, Paris
The Café-Concert, about 1878–79
The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, 37.893
The House at Rueil, 1882
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1926
Woman Reading, 1880 or 81
The Art Institute of Chicago, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection
Manet and Modern Beauty has been co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the J. Paul Getty Museum.
Sponsors
The lead affiliate sponsor is the Auxiliary Board of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Major support is provided by Robert J. Buford, Rande and Cary D. McMillan in honor of Mrs. Cindy Pritzker, the Shure Charitable Trust, Loretta and Allan Kaplan, and Nancy Strubbe Santi and E. Scott Santi.
Additional support is made possible by Norman and Virginia Bobins, The Robert Thomas Bobins Foundation; Margot Levin Schiff and the Harold Schiff Foundation; the Rose L. and Sidney N. Shure Endowment; and Jean M. Unsworth.
Members of the Exhibitions Trust provide annual leadership support for the museum’s operations, including exhibition development, conservation and collection care, and educational programming. The Exhibitions Trust includes an anonymous donor; Neil Bluhm and the Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation; Jay Franke and David Herro; Kenneth Griffin; Caryn and King Harris, The Harris Family Foundation; Karen Gray-Krehbiel and John Krehbiel, Jr.; Robert M. and Diane v.S. Levy; Ann and Samuel M. Mencoff; Sylvia Neil and Dan Fischel; Anne and Chris Reyes; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; and the Earl and Brenda Shapiro Foundation.
This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Additional support is provided by the Illinois Office of Tourism.
