Musée Marmottan Monet 8 March – 1 July 2012

Transcription

Musée Marmottan Monet
Press dossier – February 2012
(1841-1895)
8 March – 1 July 2012
Media relations
Agence Catherine Dantan
Cathia Chabre
7, rue Charles V – 75004 Paris
Tel. : 01 40 21 05 15
[email protected]
www.catherine-dantan.fr
M usée M armot tan M onet
P A R I S
contents
03 Press release
05 Foreword by Jacques Taddei, Director, Musée Marmottan Monet
06 Berthe Morisot the Impressionist
08 Exhibition itinerary 11 Selected works 19 Biographical outline
22 Press visuals
23 Publications
exploring Berthe Morisot’s life and work
Musée Marmottan Monet – Berthe Morisot
24 Musical evenings
25 Practical information
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I
press release
From 8 March to 1 July 2012, the Musée Marmottan presents the first major retrospective
of the work of Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) to be held in Paris for almost half a century.
One hundred and fifty paintings, pastels, watercolours and drawings in red chalk and
charcoal, from museums and private collections all over the world, retrace the career of the
Impressionist movement’s best-known woman painter. Works selected for the exhibition
cover the whole of Berthe Morisot’s artistic career, from her earliest works c. 1860, to her
untimely death at the age of 54, in 1895.
The exhibition opens with an exceptional group of self-portraits, and portraits of Morisot
by Edouard Manet (the celebrated painter of Olympia was her brother-in-law). As a founder
member of the Impressionist group, and a leading figure in Paris’s artistic and literary
circles, Berthe Morisot was also a close friend and associate of Degas, Renoir, Monet, and
the poet Stéphane Mallarmé.
Berthe Morisot’s artistic training, in company with her sister Edma, is captured in the latter’s
portrait of Berthe, the sisters’ copies of Veronese painted in the Louvre under the direction
of their art master Joseph Guichard, and the View of Gardens of the Villa d’Este in Tivoli
by Jean-Baptiste Corot (with whom Berthe later studied). Edma was Berthe’s painting
companion until 1869, and her favourite model from 1869 to 1873. Edma abandoned
painting after her marriage, and Berthe continued alone, pursuing her career as a leading
member of the Impressionist group.
At the first Impressionist exhibition, held at the gallery of Paris photographer Nadar in
1874, Berthe Morisot’s work stood out for its feminine subject-matter and delicate style,
and her skill in transcribing the limpid atmosphere and light touch of watercolour in her
oil paintings, giving her work a particular freshness.
From 1873-4 onwards, cousins, friends and professional models posed for portraits showing women dressed, or dressing, for the ball – including Morisot’s last studies in black –
or intimate scenes of everyday life revealing the evolution of the artist’s palette towards
more pastel hues, prompting comparisons with Watteau, Bonington and Fragonard.
Her daughter Julie, born in 1878, naturally became Berthe Morisot’s favourite model, and
the subject of fifteen paintings executed between 1882 and 1888, forming the centrepiece
of the exhibition. Beyond Morisot’s fascination for the theme of childhood, the paintings
testify to the brilliance of her mature style: colours, handling and painterly effects embody
‘Impressionism par excellence’.
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press release
The final part of the exhibition is divided into two sections, one devoted to landscape
– a subject treated by Berthe Morisot throughout her life, and the genre of choice for her
late experiments in the dissolution of form, c.1894-95 – the other, to Berthe’s three versions of the Cerisier (‘Cherry Tree’) and the Petite Bergère allongée (‘Young shepherdess
reclining’) and the last portraits of Julie, works underscoring Berthe Morisot’s late but key
interest in large-scale compositions and – from 1885 onwards – in drawing. In this closing
section, landscapes bordering on abstraction face contemporary portraits captured in
clean, delicate outlines, each echoing the other and illustrating the rich diversity of artistic
experimentation (drawing, and the dissolution of form) with which Morisot engaged in
her last years.
The exhibition layout takes a fresh look at the work of Berthe Morisot. More than a painter
of women and children, a self-conscious bridge between the painting of the 18th and 19th
centuries, the exhibition invites us to see in her one of the Impressionist movement’s most
innovative, least dogmatic artists – the only member of the group to identify and explore
the link between Renoir’s drawings and the dissolution of form achieved later, by Monet.
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foreword by jacques taddei
director of the musée marmottan monet
For over half a century, the Musée Marmottan has been home to one of the world’s most
important collections of Impressionist paintings, and a key institution for the study of
the movement, thanks to legacies and gifts from the friends and families of the painters
themselves.
Victorine Donop de Monchy, the daughter of Georges de Bellio – a doctor, collector and
friend of the Impressionists – set the ball rolling with a bequest of some of the universallyacknowledged masterpieces of modern painting, including Claude Monet’s Impression,
soleil levant (‘Impression, sunrise’) and Berthe Morisot’s Au bal (‘At the ball’), one of her
best-known and finest works.
In 1966, Michel Monet bequeathed his private collection of works inherited from his father,
bringing one hundred paintings by the founding father of Impressionism to the museum.
In the 1990s, Berthe Morisot’s descendants showed the same generosity:
In 1993, Annie Rouart, wife of Denis Rouart, Berthe Morisot’s grandson, created the Denis
and Annie Rouart Foundation for their private collection of over 150 artworks, now housed
at the museum, almost half by Berthe Morisot.
Three years later, in 1996, Thérèse Rouart, wife of Julien Rouart – another grandson of the
artist – followed the example with a bequest of three works by Berthe Morisot, and pieces
of furniture once belonging to the artist.
With 25 paintings and 50 drawings, the Musée Marmottan holds the world’s biggest public
collection of work by Berthe Morisot. The museum also holds the artist’s invaluable correspondence, and a number of sketchbooks of vital importance for the study of her work.
Fifteen years after a major exhibition of this unique legacy, the Musée Marmottan is organizing a long-awaited retrospective of Berthe Morisot’s work, the first in Paris since 1941.
This event would not have been possible without the involvement and generosity of the
artist’s family, to whom I express my warmest gratitude. I should also like to thank the many
participating museums and collectors around the world for their vital support. Without
them, we would not have been able to gather together the 150 works presented here today.
As a member of the Institut de France, and director of the museum, I cannot end without
expressing my great pleasure at the inclusion in the exhibition catalogue of texts by Paul
Valéry and Jean-Marie Rouart, both distinguished members of the Académie Française.
Jacques Taddei
Member of the Institut Français.
Director, Musée Marmottan Monet
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berthe morisot the impressionist
‘The fact that the Impressionist group included a woman among its ranks from the outset
is seen today as symbolic, bearing witness to the painters’ embrace of a revolution that was
not confined to the world of painting, but also a sign of a much wider evolution in society
as a whole. Throughout her life, with each new work, each new exhibition, the Impressionists considered Berthe Morisot their equal, and her paintings were greatly appreciated by
every member of the group.’ Jean-Dominique Rey, Berthe Morisot, the Beautiful Painter,
Flammarion, 2010, trans. Louise Rogers Lalaurie.
Berthe Morisot is an exceptional figure – an artist who, at the end of the 19th century,
succeeded in reconciling the life of a society lady, wife and mother with a career as an
avant-garde painter (at a time when women were not yet admitted as students to the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts), and who achieved a distinguished reputation as a leading figure in
the Impressionist movement.
Berthe Morisot was born in Bourges, on January 14, 1841. The daughter of the local prefect
(the highest-ranking public servant in the French regions), she was born into a bourgeois,
intellectual family, and studied the piano and drawing with her sister Edma. After a brief
period studying with Geoffroy-Alphonse Chocarne, she studied drawing and colour with
Joseph Guichard, and registered as a copyist at the Louvre to complete her classical art
training. Corot and Oudinot introduced her to painting out of doors – a new approach
which she found especially interesting.
Her meeting with Edouard Manet in 1868 marked a turning point in her life and career.
Berthe Morisot some became one of Manet’s favourite models (Berthe Morisot reclining,
Musée Marmottan Monet). In particular, she posed for two paintings – The Balcony, and
Le repos (‘At rest’), which caused a scandal at the Paris Salon. Undeterred, the young woman
went on to exhibit her own paintings at the Salon, beginning in 1864. Manet – the painter
of the celebrated, equally scandalous Olympia – introduced Berthe Morisot to a new circle,
eager to promote a new kind of painting. Degas, Fantin-Latour, Puvis de Chavannes,
Stevens, Carolus Duran, Jules and Charles Ferry, the composer Rossini, and the painter
Léon Riesener – a cousin of Delacroix – became regulars at Madame Morisot’s Tuesday
salon, and privileged witnesses to the progress of her daughter Berthe, who found encouragement in her determination to create a truly distinctive body of work.
A few months before Berthe’s marriage to Manet’s brother Eugène on December 22, 1874,
Degas – a regular at Madame Morisot’s salon – wrote to invite Berthe to take part in the first
Impressionist exhibition: ‘[…] Mlle Berthe Morisot’s reputation and talent are too much
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berthe morisot the impressionist
a part of our endeavor to leave her out.’ Berthe Morisot accepted the invitation, the only
woman artist in the show. Turning her back on the official Paris Salon for good, she joined
her destiny with that of Monet, Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro. With the exception of the fourth
Impressionist exhibition, held shortly after the birth of her daughter Julie (1878-1966),
Berthe Morisot took part in every one of the group’s shows. From 1874 to 1886, the date
of the last Impressionist exhibition, she exhibited nowhere else, establishing herself as
one of the most dedicated members of the group, and the patron of the 1882 and 1886
exhibitions, when she was one of the few Impressionists to agree to have her work shown
alongside Seurat and Signac.
Following Edouard Manet’s death in 1883, Berthe’s Impressionist colleagues Degas, Renoir,
and Monet, and the Symbolist poet Mallarmé formed an intimate circle – a much-loved
extended ‘family’ – gathering for Thursday dinners (beginning in 1886) at the house she
had just built with her husband Eugène on Rue de Villejust in Paris.
In 1892, Berthe Morisot held her first solo exhibition at Galerie Boussod et Valadon – the
only such event held during her lifetime. In 1894, the French State acquired her painting
Jeune Femme en toilette de bal (‘Young woman dressed for a ball’, Paris, Musée d’Orsay)
at the Duret Collection sale, taking Berthe Morisot into the national collection, at the Musée
de Luxembourg, during her own lifetime. In 1895, Berthe Morisot died suddenly of a lung
infection at the age of 54. Her daughter Julie, and her friends Degas, Renoir, Monet and
Mallarmé organized a retrospective of her work one year later, celebrating the woman
who was both Manet’s muse, and a foremost Impressionist in her own right.
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exhibition itinerary
Berthe Morisot: painter and muse
Fittingly for an exhibition devoted to a woman who was the muse of Edouard Manet
(from 1863 to 1874), the itinerary begins with an exceptional collection of self-portraits
(Self-portrait, 1885, and Portrait of Berthe Morisot and her Daughter, 1885; Self-portrait with
Julie, 1887) and portraits of Berthe Morisot by Edouard Manet (Berthe Morisot with a posy
of violets, 1872; Berthe Morisot reclining, 1873), and Marcelin Desboutin. Berthe married
Manet’s brother Eugène, becoming a leading figure in the Impressionist movement, and
a close friend of Degas, Renoir, Monet and Mallarmé.
Artistic training
At a time when women were not allowed to enroll at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the young
Berthe Morisot took private classes in painting, first (for a short time) with Chocarne, and
later with Guichard, who provided a classical artistic education and enrolled his pupil as
a copyist at the Louvre, where she copied works by Veronese under his instruction (Calvary,
1858; The Meat at the House of Simon, 1860). Recognising in her an artist destined for a
professional career, Guichard recommended his pupil to Corot (whose View of Gardens
of the Villa d’Este in Tivoli Morisot copied in 1863). Corot introduced Morisot to painting
out of doors, which she loved.
From 1857 to 1864, Berthe Morisot studied painting in the company of her sister Edma,
sharing a passionate enthusiasm for art, and an intimate bond. Equally talented, the
desmoiselles Morisot made their Salon début in 1864. Shortly after, Edma painted Berthe
in the act of painting – a subject never attempted by Manet, or any other artist.
Berthe Morisot, her sisters and the ‘ladies of the Grand-Rue’ (1869-1878)
Edma married Adolphe Pontillon in 1869, left Paris for Lorient on the Breton coast, and gave
up her painting career. Perhaps as a way of overcoming their separation, and keeping
alive her sister’s association with the art of painting, Berthe Morisot made Edma her chief
model, from 1869 to 1873, depicting her in numerous works, sometimes alone (Portrait of
Mme Pontillon, 1869, Reading, 1873) and sometimes with her two small daughters, Blanche
and Jeanne (Lilacs at Maurecourt, 1874). Early in her career, Berthe Morisot’s palette was
largely influenced by Manet, whom she met at the Louvre in 1868, becoming his favourite
model. Her interest in the depiction of light and effects of transparency drew her closer to
the work of Monet and Renoir, however, and she exhibited with the Impressionist group,
at Degas’s invitation, from 1874.
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In 1873-4, with her sister Edma living in Brittany, Berthe sought new sitters in her Parisian
cousins (Portrait of Mme Boursier, 1873), friends (Portrait of Mme Hubard, 1874) and professional models, posing for portraits in formal ball dress (Le Bal, 1875; The Black Corsage,
1878 – her last studies in black) or intimist scenes (Before the mirror / Devant la psyché,
1876) revealing the evolution of Berthe Morisot’s palette towards more pastel hues, drawing
comparisons with Watteau, Bonington and Fragonard).
The heart of Impressionism
Julie Manet – Young girls out of doors (1878-1889)
Julie, born in 1878, naturally became Berthe Morisot’s favourite model.
Fifteen paintings and watercolours executed between 1882 and 1888 form the centerpiece
of the exhibition. Julie is seen with her father Eugène (Eugène Manet and his daughter in
the garden at Bougival, 1881), her nurse Pasie (The Fable, 1883), playing with her friend
Marthe (Children beside a pool, 1886), her cousin Jeannie (The Piano, 1888) or alone (Little
girl in a blue jersey, 1886).
During the same period, Berthe Morisot pursued her passion for painting figures out of
doors, inviting young women to pose in the Bois de Boulogne (Summer’s Day, 1879), at her
holiday home in Bougival (Pasie sewing in the garden, 1881-2), or the garden of the home
she had built with her husband on Rue de Villejust in Paris’s 16th arrondissement (Woman
in a garden, 1882-3).
Beyond their subject-matter, this group of paintings testifies to the brilliance of Morisot’s
mature style: her pastel colours, free handling and effects of transparency embody the
essence of ‘Impressionism par excellence’.
Landscapes (1871-1895)
Berthe Morisot’s landscape paintings are less well-known, although she dedicated herself
to the genre throughout her life, and took care to represent this aspect of her work at each
of the Impressionist exhibitions. Painted close to home in the Bois de Boulogne, or on
trips to Normandy, Bougival, Nice, Le Mesnil or Brittany, for example, the paintings
evoke the places she visited and loved, retracing her life and the evolution of her art from
1871 to 1895.
As pretexts for Berthe Morisot’s pivotal study of the reflections of light on water, The
Harbour in Nice and The Seine at Bougival are works in the purest Impressionist vein (like
The Garden at Bougival or Hollyhocks) to which Berthe brought her own, highly personal,
poetic approach.
In the late 1880s, landscape become the genre of choice for her experiments in the dissolution of form. Her late views of the Bois de Boulogne border on abstraction. Inspired
by photography and the contemporary craze for japonisme, they combine tightly-framed,
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close-up compositions with a tendency to monochrome, an absence of perspective and
noticeably free handling. As such, they anticipate in many ways the experiments pursued
by Monet twenty years later.
Large-scale compositions (1890-1895)
Contrasting with the landscapes, and especially with Berthe Morisot’s non-figurative
experiments of 1894-5, the exhibition presents an exceptional group of large-sale compositions executed in 1891. The three versions of The Cherry Tree, showing Julie and her
cousin Jeannie picking fruit in the garden at Mézy, and the variations of the Young shepherdess reclining – some clothed, some nude – are shown together here for the first time
in a retrospective of Morisot’s work. The paintings demonstrate Morisot’s interest in decorative painting in her later years, and the essential role of drawing in her work – a passion
she shared with her friend Renoir, beginning in 1885.
The last portraits of Julie are in very much the same vein, showing her as an adolescent,
playing the violin in the family apartment on Rue de Weber, where she moved with her
mother in 1892, or – in another composition – with Laertes, her pet greyhound, a gift from
Mallarmé, who was soon to become her guardian.
The exhibition closes with a painting of Julie rêveuse (‘Julie daydreaming’) – one of
Morisot’s most Renoir-esque portraits – and a vigourously-sketched depiction of the Bois
de Boulogne. Begun in 1893, just a few months apart, and shown here facing each other,
the works illustrate Morisot’s late experiments in painting, and her exploration – more
than by any other artist – of the transition from Renoir to the dissolution of form achieved
two decades later, by Monet.
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selected works
Commentaries on all works in the exhibition are included in the catalogue: Berthe Morisot
(1841-1895), Editions Hazan.
Édouard Manet (1832–1883), Berthe Morisot Reclining (Portrait de Berthe Morisot étendue), 1873
Oil on canvas, 26 x 34 cm (10¼ x 13½ in.) – Signed and date upper right: Manet 1873
Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Denis & Annie Rouart Foundation, inv. 6086
Together with Berthe Morisot with a Fan (Berthe Morisot à l’éventail, 1874, Palais des Beaux-Arts,
Lille), this little painting is one of only two portraits by Manet that Morisot owned. Both works
were mentioned in the ‘Historique des tableaux d’Éd. Manet’ that Morisot drew up in one of her
notebooks in around 1885–86. Number ten in this brief inventory described a ‘head-and-shoulders
portrait cut from a full-length portrait reclining on a sofa’. Étienne Moreau-Nélaton tried to describe
the painting as Manet initially conceived it, discussing the reasons that led the artist to sacrifice
part of his canvas. Morisot was ‘reclining on a sofa with one arm extended along the back of the
settee, wearing the black dress that we have seen elsewhere, enlivened once again by white
stockings and pink shoes. But once it was finished, a major mistake so troubled Manet that instead
of correcting a hand he felt was too big, he slashed the work in an impulsive gesture and amputated the legs and one arm of the figure, keeping only the head and shoulders, the rest being
mercilessly sacrificed.’
Even in its current dimensions, Berthe Morisot Reclining should not be considered a truncated
painting or a fragment of a larger, no longer extant whole. Indeed, it is an autonomous work
resulting from an intentional creative process that included cutting down the canvas itself – which
he signed, dated and offered to his sitter, something Manet never did with unfinished work.
This intimate portrait with its amazing sense of presence reveals Morisot’s beauty and sensuality
thanks to the artist’s total mastery (and perhaps passion). The boldness and intensity of Morisot’s
gaze would captivate the likes of Baudelaire. As Paul Valéry pointed out, it was because ‘her eyes…
were almost too huge and so powerfully dark that Manet… in order to record all their magnetic,
mysterious power, painted them black instead of the greenish colour they really were’. This transformed Morisot, according to Jacques-Émile Blanche, into the ‘Goya element’ in Manet’s œuvre.
Morisot kept this portrait all her life. In 1890 she depicted it in Before the Mirror (cat. 66), and in
1893 it figured again in the background of Julie Playing the Violin (cat. 73). A photoengraving
of this portrait also served as the frontispiece to the catalogue of her posthumous exhibition.
MMa
The Green Parasol (L’Ombrelle verte) or Reading (La Lecture), 1873
Oil on canvas, 45.1 x 72.4 cm (18⅛ x 28¼ in.) – Signed lower right: Berthe Morisot
Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, gift of the Hanna Fund, inv. 1950.89
Edma Morisot Pontillon gave up painting when she married and moved to Lorient. It was a wrench
for her younger sister, Berthe, who lost a painting companion of more than ten years. From Paris,
Berthe wrote letters full of news to Edma, describing the Salon of 1869 in the following terms:
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selected works
‘The great Bazille… is seeking what we have so often sought – to place a figure in an outdoor
setting – and this time I think he has succeeded.’ Henceforth, every time they got together Berthe
had Edma pose; if no longer her colleague, her sister thus became the protagonist of her œuvre.
She depicted Edma outdoors, in Lorient, Paris and Normandy, initially in watercolours and
then in The Green Parasol, an oil that Charles Stuckey asserts was painted at Les Petites Dalles
in 1873. Stuckey has stressed the importance of this work, which illustrates Morisot’s primary
quest in the early 1870s, namely to establish a formal and chromatic balance based on repetitions of shapes (fan and parasol), textures (wildflowers and hat) and colours (the green of grass
and ribbon). Exhibited at the first Impressionist show in 1874 under the title of Reading (number
105), this painting was noted by critic Jean Prouvaire. ‘Far from backstage scenes at the theatre, Mademoiselle Berthe Morisot leads us to meadows moistened by seaside dew. In both her
watercolours and oils, she likes large lawns in which some woman sits, book in hand, with a
child nearby. She sets the charming artifices of a Parisian lady against the charms of nature.’ In
Charivari, however, Louis Leroy criticized the sketchiness of Morisot’s work: ‘Let’s talk about
Mademoiselle Morizot [sic]! This young lady doesn’t bother to depict a mass of idle details.
When she has to paint a hand (La Lecture), she employs as many long brushstrokes as there
are fingers, and the thing is done.’ Even Morisot’s former teacher, Joseph Guichard, worried in
a letter to her mother that Berthe ‘wanted to express in oil what is the exclusive domain of
watercolour’. Visitors to the first Impressionist exhibition could thereby observe, via Reading,
the main characteristics of Morisot’s œuvre: a modern, feminine subject-matter, Impressionist brushwork, a luminous palette and transparent effects usually reserved for watercolours.
MMa
Woman with a Fan (Femme à l’éventail) or At the Ball (Au bal), 1875
Oil on canvas, 62 x 52 cm (24⅜ x 20½ in.) – Signed lower right: Berthe Morisot
Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, gift of Victorine Donop de Monchy, 1940, inv. 4020
Exhibited at the Impressionist show of 1876, this painting reveals Morisot’s interest at that time
in seated or head-and-shoulder portraits of female models, usually indoors. At the Ball, like the
Musée d’Orsay’s Young Woman at a Ball (Jeune femme au bal) – done a few years later – and
the Woman with a Fan (Femme à l’éventail) of 1876, is part of this evocation of a familiar world,
one that was perhaps more conducive to the awakening of Morisot’s artistic personality. At the
Ball was a testing ground that reveals Morisot’s experiments in the expressiveness of colour.
The repetition of a single motif – the bouquet of flowers in the background, the flowers in the
hair, and the flower on the corsage – allowed her to weave a network of correspondences.
The garment, the fan (now in a private collection) and even the gloves, while they dot the canvas
with tones of white, above all offer an excuse to evoke the material quality of the fabrics and
to convey the transparency of the dress in contrast to the opacity of the gloves and the lightness
of the fan.
It is perhaps this attention to the depiction of specifically feminine attributes – domestic interiors,
fashionable dress, sitters in melancholic or dreamy poses – that led Albert Wolff to state in 1876:
‘There is also a woman in the group, as there is in all notorious gangs, for that matter; her
name is Berthe Morisot and she is curious to observe. She maintains feminine grace amidst
the excesses of a frenzied imagination.’ MMo
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selected works
The Plain of Gennevilliers (La Plaine de Gennevilliers) or Hanging the Laundry Out to Dry
(Percher de blanchisseuse), 1875
Oil on canvas, 33 x 40.6 cm (13 x 16 in.) – Signed lower left: Berthe Morisot – Washington, National
Gallery of Art, collection of Mr and Mrs Paul Mellon, inv. 1985.64.28
‘I’ve just come from the plain of Gennevilliers, which I crossed from one end to the other, starting
from Epinay,’ wrote Eugène Manet to Berthe Morisot in 1882. ‘Everything is blossoming and smells
of spring. This plain is indeed pretty from all sides.’ Morisot knew these outskirts of Paris well, for
her in-laws had a house there. She also liked this increasingly urbanised landscape when it was
transfigured by the light of the first days of mild weather. In the spring of 1875 she did four similarly structured paintings of it during one stay shortly after her marriage: Little Mill at Gennevilliers
(Le Petit Moulin à Gennevilliers, CMR 43, private collection), Landscape at Gennevilliers (cat. 13,
CMR 44, private collection), In the Wheat Fields (Dans les blés, CMR 46, Musée d’Orsay, Paris) and
this painting of Hanging the Laundry Out to Dry. The artist adopted a somewhat low angle and
placed the horizon line along the upper third of the painting, thereby increasing the apparent vastness of the plain. The compositions are organised on two registers, a primary one devoted to the
fields and a smaller, crowning one that featured the cloud-studded sky typical of the greater Paris
region. However, Hanging the Laundry Out to Dry differs from the other views of Gennevilliers in
its light, varied palette, with whites, pinks and blues lighting up the picture. Applied in short
strokes, these colours evoke rather than depict the hanging sheets and the dress of the laundress,
whose mere presence lends life to the scene. Morisot was clearly fond of this painting, which she
exhibited at the Impressionist show of 1876, where collector Georges de Bellio bought it. Indeed,
in 1892 she asked to borrow the painting so that it could be included in the only solo show organised
during her lifetime, at the Boussod et Valadon gallery. It was borrowed once again in 1896 for her
posthumous exhibition. MMa
Before the Mirror (Devant la psyché), 1890
Oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm (21⅝ x 18⅛ in.) – Signed lower right: B. Morisot – Martigny, Pierre Gianadda
Foundation Collection
Painting a nude at her toilet from the back without revealing her facial features in the mirror
seemed particularly modern at the time, and probably reflected an artistic challenge: the reflection
appears as a painting within the painting, and moreover alluded to other canvases such as
Manet’s Berthe Morisot Reclining (Berthe Morisot étendue, cat. 3). Degas, like Manet, had painted
reflections in a mirror, but the subject had rarely been applied to a woman seen from the back.
Critic Edmond Duranty had initiated the idea in 1876 – doing a portrait from the back was a modern motif that seemed to represent a particularly sharp break with tradition. While this type of
subject was typical of Morisot, the handling reveals a development dating back a year. ‘In 1889,
for Christmas, Julie received a box of coloured pencils as a gift, which gave Berthe the idea of
using that technique. Once again, her work evolved thanks to her daughter; from that point
onward, drawing became a crucial part of her work. The subjects for paintings were first worked
out in various sketches in pencil or watercolour, then squared up. Between 1888 and 1891, her
style changed more than it ever had before.’ Her brushstrokes lengthened, following volumes and
enclosing outlines. Still basically swift and fragmented, her brushwork nevertheless adapted to a
more uniform handling of body – Morisot managed to reconcile opposites by drawing in colour.
EAS
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selected works
Summer’s Day (Jour d’été), 1879
Oil on canvas, 45.7 x 75.3 cm (18 x 29⅝ in.) – Signed lower right: Berthe Morisot – London, The National
Gallery, bequest of M. Lane in 1917, inv. NG 3264
There is no need to identify the sitters in this painting, nor is there a need to know the location
(even though it was exhibited at the 1880 Impressionist show under the title of The Lake in the
Bois de Boulogne). Nor, finally, is there a need to define the action, to decide whether these two
women are simply enjoying a boat ride or are travelling on the ferry to the islands of the lower
lake. The only thing that mattered to the artist, who boarded the boat in order to paint her sitters
from life, was the study of two figures seen outdoors, subject to the variations of summer light
shimmering on the water.
Done in the summer of 1879, when Morisot was living near the lake, this canvas shows her commitment to Impressionism in terms of both subject-matter and handling. The latter is particularly
lively here. Like her male colleagues, Morisot sought to convey the temporal aspect of the act of
painting by leaving certain passages in a sketchy state – notably the bottom of the blue dress,
done with just a few brushstrokes. Since the Impressionists established no hierarchy of forms, the
figures are handled in the same way as the water of the lake, using rapid, zigzag brushstrokes all
across the canvas. Such brushwork nevertheless plays a constructive role within the apparently
chaotic evocation of the infinite variety of light by adding substantial density to this straightforward composition, one based on setting the figures along the diagonal gunwale of the boat while
anchoring their faces on the green horizontal of the shore. PP
Eugène Manet and His Daughter at Bougival (Eugène Manet et sa fille dans le jardin de Bougival)
or In the Country (A la campagne), 1881
Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm (28¾ x 36¼ in.) – Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Denis & Annie Rouart
Foundation, 1993, inv. 6018
‘I’m somewhat flabbergasted that you say you took the canvas of you and Bibi, it seems absolutely silly to me. I beg you, take another look at it.… If my paintings are to be put on easels, that
is to say very near [the viewer], then don’t put things that may appear grotesque.’ Those are the
words that Morisot addressed in 1882 to her husband Eugène Manet, who was charged with
setting up his wife’s work at the Impressionist exhibition. While the portrait of Eugène with his
daughter in the garden at Bougival seemed inadequate in the eyes of the artist, some critics noticed
it immediately.
‘Mademoiselle Berthe Morisot has always had a palette of exquisite finesse. But the draughtsmanship of this charming artist is truly becoming too imaginary. Her canvases are henceforth a delicious
stew of colours.… The large figure bearing the number 92, titled In the Country, is the largest of
her submissions.’ Morisot’s harmonious use of colour struck Armand Sylvestre when he reviewed
this exhibition for the Chronique des arts et de la curiosité. Indeed, even though Eugène and little
Julie are easily identifiable – the father is sitting on a bench with a construction set on his lap while
his daughter plays with the pieces – the viewer’s eye is rapidly drawn to the colourful reverberations
that punctuate the canvas. This impression is reinforced by the garden in the background, where
the flowers become a series of coloured brushstrokes evoking the variety of the flowerbeds there.
And yet behind this apparent diversity there lies the quest for a certain unity of tone. The flowerbeds, Julie’s dress and ribbon, and even Eugène’s hat seem to echo one another, constituting an
ensemble of pink and mauve hues. MMo
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The Port of Nice (Le Port de Nice), 1882
Oil on canvas, 53 x 43 cm (23¼ x 17 in.) – Signature stamp lower right – Paris, Musée Marmottan
Monet, Denis & Annie Rouart Foundation, 1993, inv. 6010
The Port of Nice (Le Port de Nice), 1882
Oil on canvas, 41 x 55 cm (16⅛ x 21⅝ in.) – Signed lower right: Berthe Morisot – Cologne,
Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Corboud Foundation, inv. Dep. FC710
During her first stay in Nice with her daughter, Morisot executed roughly ten paintings, three
of which were shown at the seventh Impressionist exhibition. Two of those three were these
similarly sized views of the port. In order to get closer to her subject and to avoid setting her
easel on a dock crowded with onlookers, Morisot had herself taken right up to the ships. There
she could paint in peace, as Julie recorded in her diary: ‘Mama painted in a boat in the middle
of the harbour, and I watched her from the dock. I wanted to go with her in the boat but at the
same time I was very afraid.’
Rotating the format of these two canvases, Morisot presented two very different points of view.
The work now in the Musée Marmottan Monet allots nearly two-thirds of the canvas to the
watery element, opening onto the villas overlooking the port; the other one, is divided into two
registers of equal dimensions, occupied respectively by a tangle of ships and by the reflection
of a fishing boat set on the middle line.
Done with light, swift brushwork that allows glimpses of raw canvas, these views of the port of
Nice seem more like watercolours than oil paintings; conservative critics were inevitably
shocked by the unfinished look of the works on display. Described by Paul de Charry in his 1882
review as ‘something incomprehensible and mad’, the Cologne version was also disliked for its
heavy use of pure cobalt blue, a new chemical pigment that the Impressionists used liberally
and which many detractors felt was too aggressive on the eyes.
The palette used by Morisot in the southern French sunlight was nevertheless much more moderate than the one used by her Impressionist colleagues who were discovering the Riviera during
that same period. It was on his return from Italy in 1882 that Renoir stayed in Provence for the
first time, halting at L’Estaque to visit and to work alongside Cézanne. The following year, taking
advantage of a new Paris–Marseille railway line that ran as far as Vintimille, Renoir dragged
Monet down to the Riviera. The pair returned enchanted, despite Monet’s initial reservations.
Thoroughly seduced, he returned in 1884 to set up his easel near the Franco-Italian border at
Bordighera, ‘a magical land’ that Monet said ‘called for a palette of diamonds and gemstones’.
Despite the blinding intensity of the Mediterranean sunlight (which tended to crush objects into
‘silhouettes not only black and white, but also blue, red, brown and purple’, as Cézanne wrote
to Pissarro regarding L’Estaque in 1876), Morisot remained faithful to the subtle colouring that
characterised not only her painting but also her personality. PP
Self-Portrait, 1885
Oil on canvas, 61 x 50 cm (24 x 19¾ in.) – Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Denis & Annie Rouart
Foundation, inv. 6022
This portrait was not conceived as a private work painted for the family, but rather as the selfportrait of an artist who accepted her status and wanted to leave her image to posterity. As an
avid museum-goer, Morisot had visited the Uffizi in Florence in 1881, where she may have seen
the gallery of artists’ self-portraits. She certainly intended to place herself in this tradition for,
15
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like many painters before her, she showed herself with brush and palette in hand, from the
waist up, facing forward with the steady, impassive gaze of the creative artist who sacrifices
everything for art. The woman who claimed in 1890 that ‘I’ve always had great difficulty detaching myself from places, people and even animals, yet the funny thing is that people think I’m
insensitivity itself’ inevitably recognised herself in these portraits, whose apparent coldness is
merely a reflection of the demanding life of an artist.
When she began this self-portrait in 1885, Morisot probably had many examples in mind. It was
impossible not to think of Ingres and Delacroix, whose masterpieces she nostalgically recalled
in 1890. Indeed, it was Ingres’s Portrait of the Stamaty Family (1818, Louvre) that had awakened her painter’s calling at the age of fourteen. Furthermore, her teacher, Joseph Guichard
(1806–1880) had been a student of Ingres and an admirer of Delacroix. Also, she was friendly
with the Riesener family, relatives of Delacroix, that glorious painter of the Apollo ceiling (1851)
in the Louvre.
So when painting her own self-portrait, how could Morisot forget the portrait by one of her
mentors? As a cultured woman she was surely familiar with Ingres’s already famous Self-Portrait,
Aged Twenty-Four (1804, Musée Condé, Chantilly). And at the Louvre in 1884, she could have
seen Delacroix’s Portrait in a Green Waistcoat (1837, acquired by the Louvre in 1872). Perhaps
the black scarf Morisot is wearing – rather than her usual choker – and the green highlight on her
lapel should be seen as allusions to the master’s cravat and green waistcoat, thus as a discreet
tribute to an artist who was foremost in her thoughts in 1885. Finally, maybe she was also
inspired by David’s Self-Portrait in the Louvre (1794, acquired by the Louvre in 1852), in which
the artist chose to present himself, as she did, in tones of beige, palette and brush in hand.
Whatever the case, Morisot is telling us that she is the peer of masters both old and modern
(she furthermore exhibited her self-portrait alongside those of Manet, Cézanne, Gauguin and
van Gogh at the Le Barc de Boutteville gallery in 1893). Julie was correct when she wrote in
her diary: ‘We see from this portrait the great artist she was, facing us directly with her greying hair, her neck wrapped in black, and wearing a yellowish bodice trimmed with flowers,
one of which is “like a badge of honour” according to Mallarmé, lending her what Monsieur de
Régnier felt was a knightly air.’ Morisot’s ‘badge’ reveals a certain sense of wit and noble spirit.
MMa
The Cherry Tree (Le Cerisier), 1891
Oil on canvas, 55 x 33 cm (21⅝ x 13 in.) – Private collection
Oil on canvas, 146.5 x 89 cm (57⅝ x 35 in.) – Signature stamp lower right – Private collection
Oil on canvas, 154 x 80 cm (60⅝ x 31½ in.) – Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Denis & Annie Rouart
Foundation, 1993, inv. 6020
This charming work, apparently done from life in the natural light of spring, is in fact the opposite of what it appears to be. It was a long-meditated work, the product of multiple studies
requiring much effort and many changes of model. Furthermore, it was done during a time of
distress, the period between the illness and death of her husband, which the viewer of this gay
cherry-picking scene could hardly imagine.
‘What one doesn’t notice in a first glance at Berthe Morisot’s work is the strength that drives
her – a steady, focused strength channelled into expressiveness. It came at the cost of exhausting
16
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efforts that are masked by her art. The paradox of this work, which seems so spontaneous,
cheerful, sweet and harmonious, is that it was done in sorrowful circumstances, with a stubbornness and a despair hard to imagine if they weren’t confirmed by so many passages in the
notebooks and letters of an artist always dissatisfied with herself.’
Having begun with a drawing in coloured pencils done from life, the final work was completed
thanks to encouragement from Renoir after many studies of details and the overall scene. One
pastel focuses attention on the motif of the ladder in the trees, while an oil sketch was painted
in the garden prior to the execution of two larger versions done not outdoors but in the closed
atmosphere of Morisot’s studio in her rue Weber home. Here a professional model replaced
the artist’s daughter Julie, in what had been a double portrait with her niece in the foreground,
whose face was hidden. Red chalk and watercolour were also employed in an extended process
of composition that the apparent spontaneity of the final version hardly conveys. The quasidecorative ambitions behind this large work, designed to be exhibited – at Renoir’s suggestion
– at a Salon on the Champ-de-Mars, are fairly unique in Morisot’s œuvre. The graphic quality
of the composition orchestrated around the ladder and the supple brushwork (longer strokes,
albeit still lively, that define shapes and figures through colour) were based on those many
studies without losing the natural feel. This is perhaps the sole example in Morisot’s œuvre of
such thorough preparatory work, which nevertheless does not undermine its Impressionist
qualities. The final version remained in Morisot’s collection, although she nearly sold it to a
relative, Gabriel Thomas. The picture was admired by Mallarmé and Renoir at her retrospective
exhibition of 1896. Renoir probably felt affinities with Morisot’s success at combining draughtsmanship with colour, great rigour with naturalness, and a sense of intimacy with decorative
ambitions. EAS
Woods in Autumn (Sous-bois en automne), 1894
Oil on canvas, 43 x 33 cm (17 x 13 in.) – Signature stamp lower left – Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet,
Denis & Annie Rouart Foundation, inv. 6004
Tree and Lake in the Woods (Arbre et lac au bois) or Sunset on the Lake in the Bois
de Boulogne (Soleil couchant sur le lac du bois de Boulogne), 1894
Oil on canvas, 27 x 35 cm (10¾ x 13¾ in.) – Signature stamp lower left – Private collection
All her life Morisot lived in the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, right near the Bois de Boulogne.
These woods were an ideal place to work for an artist who was so enthusiastic about plein air
painting. In 1920 Jacques-Emile Blanche wrote a text that he dedicated to Julie Manet (Les
Dames de la Grande-Rue) in which he recalled the days when Berthe Morisot still lived with her
parents on rue Guichard ‘in the heart of old Passy’, the days when her first escapades took her
to the lake to do ‘a study of the swans, which she followed in a boat’. Paul Valéry, meanwhile,
wrote that the woods ‘provided [Morisot] with all the landscape she needed… Berthe was satisfied with this poor Paris version of nature, for she took what it had to offer: an excuse for
exquisite paintings’.
It was in the Bois de Boulogne that Morisot first painted figures in outdoor settings, using professional models (Summer’s Day, cat. 26), followed by Julie and her nanny Pasie, several examples
of which are included here . Autonomous landscapes are rarer. The earliest views of the Bois
de Boulogne were painted in around 1884–86. Meanwhile, a significant series of small paintings
date from 1893–94, including the two here, Autumn in the Woods and Sunset on the Lake in the
Bois de Boulogne. MMa
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Bois de Boulogne, 1893
Oil on canvas – 50 x 61 cm (19½ x 24 in.) – Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet, Denis & Annie Rouart
Foundation, inv. 6008
‘‘In the wood’, in front of the lake where you glimpse the island with its flowerbeds, the strollers
and the lane circling the lake with its bicycles, carriages, riders, pedestrians and mothers with their
children, set against a celestial blue sky,’ wrote Julie Manet in her diary, ‘stands Laertes on his hind
legs, being stroked by his mistress, also standing, dressed in black with a large muslin hat; the
grass is rather yellow, and a green tree trunk occupies the foreground. It’s a wonderful impression
of the woods in summer, of this garden that posed for Mama – she was its portraitist. This painting
was done from a sketch, very quickly.’ Known sketches include one watercolour and two drawings
in coloured pencils.The painting itself was done in the rue Weber apartment, where Morisot moved
after her husband died. In its swift execution, its lively, sketchy style, the marked tendency of
shapes to dissolve into one another, and its chromatic range and Japanese-type composition,
Bois de Boulogne is a harbinger of Morisot’s last landscapes with which it already shares a title.
After painting this work at the end of summer, in October 1893 Morisot undertook a very different
portrait of Julie, titled Julie Daydreaming (cat. 79). Unlike Bois de Boulogne, outlines are distinctly
drawn and shapes are maintained. What Julie described in her diary as a ‘very finished’ painting
in fact illustrates the artistic dialogue then underway between Morisot and Renoir (who also did a
portrait of Julie in 1894, now in the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris). Separated by just a few
months, Bois de Boulogne and Julie Daydreaming reflect the various approaches adopted by
Morisot in the 1890s. Tending towards abstraction on one hand, yet organised around draughtsmanship on the other, they reveal the constant creativity and open-mindedness of an artist who
stands as one of the most original practitioners of Impressionism. MMa
Julie Daydreaming (Julie rêveuse), 1894
Oil on canvas – 65 x 54 cm (25½ x 21¼ in.) – Private collection
This intimate, melancholy portrait was begun in the studio on rue Weber after the death of Julie’s
father, and was completed the very year that Morisot and her daughter posed for Renoir. Julie
herself commented, ‘I seem so sad in this graceful portrait, one senses the misfortune that struck
me so intensely, still so young.’ Her sorrowful reverie is particularly well expressed by her curled
pose, vacant gaze and pouting lips. The strong outlines – noted by all the critics at the 1896 exhibition – are reminiscent of Renoir’s technique and his own portraits of Julie, which underscore the
geometry of her face through round cheeks and lips countered by oblong, feline eyes. Going
beyond Renoir, Morisot possessed a special, long – almost languorous – brushstroke that outlined
her daughter’s figure and followed the line of her head in multiple waves, creating a kind of green
aura around her hair. In this respect the portrait perhaps projects an atypical, almost ‘Art Nouveau’
feel; indeed, it perhaps evokes the melancholy of someone in Paris in 1896 who attentively followed the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists and who was also interested in auras and
melancholic beings, namely Edvard Munch. This similarity was certainly more than a coincidence,
reflecting an approach that was in the spirit of the times. EAS
18
VI
berthe morisot: biographical outline
1841- B
erthe Morisot is born in Bourges, the third daughter of Marie-Joséphine Cornélie Thomas
(1819-1876) and Edme Tiburce Morisot (1806-1874), prefect of the French department of Cher.
- Two older sisters, Yves (1838-1893) and Edma (1839-1921); and a younger brother, Tiburce
(1848-c.1930)
1841-1848- The Morisot family settles in Limoges.
1852- After a spell in Caen, the family moves permanently to Paris’s Passy neighbourhood,
where Berthe was to spend much of her life.
-M
usic lessons with Stamaty fils.
1857- M
adame Morisot arranges drawing lessons for her daughters. Early classes with Chocarne,
on Rue de Lille; then with the painter Joseph Guichard, a pupil of Ingres, who soon spots
Edma’s and Berthe’s talent and predicts professional careers for the girls.
1858-1860- Edma and Berthe, now copyists at the Louvre, meet Félix Bracquemond and Henri Fantin-Latour
at the museum.
1860-1862- On Guichard’s advice, the two sisters join the studio of Camille Corot, who introduces
them to painting out of doors.
- The family spends the summer of 1861 at La Ville-d’Avray, near Corot’s home, where Berthe
and Edma paint from life, out of doors.
1864- The family moves to 16 Rue Franklin in Paris; several paintings by Berthe show the house’s
drawing-room and terrace. On Tuesdays, Madame Morisot hosts her celebrated dinners,
entertaining Jules Ferry, Carolus-Duran, and Rossini.
-B
erthe and Edma make their début at the Paris Salon.
- Several important meetings follow: the painter Léon Riesener, a pupil and cousin of Delacroix,
the Duchess of Castiglione Colonna (a sculptor under the pseudonym Marcello) and
the sculptor Aimé Millet.
1865- M
onsieur Morisot builds a studio for his daughters in the garden of 16 Rue Franklin,
destroyed later during the 1871 Siege of Paris. Berthe had no studio of her own again
until 1891, but continued painting in her bedroom and drawing-room.
- The two sisters exhibit a second time at the Salon.
1866 et 1867- Third and fourth appearances at the Salon.
- In 1867, Berthe and Edma exhibit their work with the art dealer Cadart.
1868- D
uring a copying session at the Louvre, Fantin-Latour introduces Edma and Berthe
to Edouard Manet. Berthe soon becomes one of his favourite models – the subject
of ten portraits from 1868 to 1874. The families become friends: Tuesday dinners are held
at the Morisots’, Thursday evenings at the Manets’, where Berthe meets Edgar Degas,
Emile Zola, Puvis de Chavannes…
- The sisters exhibit again at the Salon.
19
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1896- E
dma marries the naval officer Adolphe Pontillon and moves to Lorient. The separation
is painful for both sisters. Edma gives up painting, but becomes Berthe’s favourite model,
from 1869 to 1871
1870-1871- Berthe’s health is permanently affected by the hardships of the Franco-Prussian war
and the Paris Commune.
1872- B
erthe exhibits a large pastel of Edma (Portrait of Mme Montillon) at the Salon.
-O
n July 10, Berthe sells a painting and three watercolours to the gallerist Durand-Ruel.
1873- F
inal appearance at the Salon.
- The family moves once again, to 7 Rue Guichard in Passy. Berthe paints her neighbours’
portraits, and pictures of Edma and her children, whom she joins for the holidays
(eg. L’Ombrelle, ‘The Parasol’).
1874- F
rom April 15 to May 15, Berthe Morisot takes part in the first Impressionist exhibition
at the studio of Paris photographer Nadar, showing nine canvases including seven of Edma.
She is the only woman to take part in the exhibition.
-O
n 22 December, Berthe marries Edouard Manet’s brother Eugène, whom she met during
the summer.
1875- On
March24, Berthe Morisot, Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Alfred Sisley organize
a public sale of their work at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. Berthe’s painting Intérieur achieves
the highest sale price (480 francs), but the sale is a commercial failure and is not repeated.
-H
oneymoon on the Isle of Wight and in London; Berthe paints numerous canvases
and watercolours.
1876- E
xhibits nineteen works at the second Impressionst exhibition at Galerie Durand-Ruel.
1877- E
xhibits twelve works at the group’s third exhibition on Rue Le Peletier.
1878- B
irth of Julie Manet (1878-1966), on November 14. Berthe’s daughter becomes her favourite model.
1879- F
or the only time in her life, Berthe does not take part in the (fourth) Impressionist exhibition,
organised soon after Julie’s birth.
1880- Exhibits
fifteen works at the fifth Impressionist exhibition on Rue des Pyramides.
1881- E
xhibits seven works at the sixth Impressionist exhibition on Boulevard des Capucines.
Critics hail Berthe as one of the movement’s outstanding exponents; her pastel colour palette
draws comparisons to Fragonard and Watteau.
- With Eugène Manet, Berthe buys a plot of land on Rue de Villejust in Paris (now Rue Paul Valéry),
where they build an apartment block, to be partly rented and partly occupied by the family.
1882- In March, Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet finance the seventh Impressionist exhibition
on Rue St Honoré, including twelve works by Berthe.
1883- In
London, Berthe presents three pictures at the Impressionist exhibition organised
by Durand-Ruel.
-D
eath of Edouard Manet, on April 30.
- Work on Rue de Villejust is completed. Eugène Manet and Berthe move to the new building
with Madame Auguste Manet, who is gravely ill.
20
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1884- A posthumous exhibition of Manet’s work opens on January 4 at the Beaux-Arts, organized
in large part by Eugène Manet and Berthe Morisot.
-T
hrough Mallarmé, Berthe Morisot becomes more closely acquainted with Monet.
1885- Berthe
Morisot organises regular Thursday soirées at Rue de Villejust: Mallarmé, Degas,
Renoir and Monet are frequent guests, as members of Morisot’s extended ‘family’
of intimate friends.
1886- Berthe
presents nine works in New York at an Impressionist exhibition organised
by Durand-Ruel.
- The last Impressionist exhibition in Paris is held from May 15 to June 15, on Rue Lafitte.
Berthe exhibits eleven works, and finances the exhibition with Degas, Henri Rouart
and Mary Cassat.
1887- Exhibits
with the Groupe des XX in Brussels, with Paul Signac, Georges Seurat and others.
- Presents seven canvases at the Exposition International, with Georges Petit.
- At Mallarmé’s request, Berthe learns print-making to illustrate a collection of poems,
Le Tiroir de Laque (‘The Lacquered Drawer’).
- Renoir paints a portrait of Julie, known as L’Enfant au Chat (‘Child with a Cat’).
1888-1891- Berthe Morisot exhibits extensively in Paris and New York.
1892- Death
of Eugène Manet on April 13.
- First solo exhibition of Berthe Morisot’s work, from May 26 to June 18 at Galerie Boussod
et Valadon. The show features forty paintings and graphic works. The catalogue is prefaced
by the journalist and art critic Gustave Geoffroy.
1893- Julie
Manet begins her private journal, during a stay with Mallarmé.
- On October 30, Julie describes a visit to Giverny with her mother, during which Monet
shows them twenty-six Cathedral paintings.
1894- Through Mallarmé, the French State acquires Berthe’s painting Jeune Femme en tenue
de bal (‘Young woman dressed for the ball’). The work enters the collection of the Musée
de Luxembourg.
- Renoir paints a portrait of Berthe with her daughter Julie.
1895- While nursing Julie, Berthe contrasts a lung infection and dies suddenly on March 2.
She is buried in the Manet family vault at Passy cemetery in Paris on March 5.
1896- Posthumous
exhibition at Galerie Durand-Ruel from March 5 to March 21, organised
by her friends Degas, Monet, Renoir and Mallarmé, assisted by Julie. The show includes
380 paintings by Berthe Morisot – the biggest-ever exhibition of her work.
21
VII
press visuals
These visuals are available for use in connection with articles promoting the exhibition
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) at the Musée Marmottan Monet from March 8 to July 1, 2012.
All visuals must be used with their accompanying captions and credits.
Berthe Morisot, La Lecture or L’Ombrelle
verte, c.1873 – Oil on canvas – 46 x 71.8 cm
The Cleveland Museum of Art – Gift of
the Hanna Fund 1950.89
Berthe Morisot, Jour d’été, 1879 – Oil on
canvas – 45.7 x 75.3 cm – The National
Gallery, London – © Bridgeman Giraudon
Berthe Morisot, Sur le lac du bois
de Boulogne, 1884 – Oil on canvas
55 x 43 cm – Private collection
© Christian Baraja, studio SLB
Berthe Morisot, Bergère nue couchée,
1891 – Oil on canvas– 56 x 86 cm
Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid,
on loan to the Thyssen-Bornemisza
Museum – © Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza
Collection, on loan to the ThyssenBornemisza Museum
Berthe Morisot, Jeune Femme en gris
étendue, 1879 – Oil on canvas– 24 x 51 cm
Private collection– © Christian Baraja,
studio SLB
Berthe Morisot, Au bal, 1875 – Oil on
canvas – 62 x 52 cm – Musée Marmottan
Monet, Paris – © musée Marmottan
Monet, Paris / Bridgeman Art / Presse
Berthe Morisot, Autoportrait, 1885 – Oil on
Berthe Morisot, Julie rêveuse, 1894,
Oil on canvas– 65 x 54 cm
Private collection – © Dreyfus
Berthe Morisot, Eugène Manet et sa fille
dans le jardin de Bougival, 1881 – Oil on
Berthe Morisot, Bois de Boulogne, 1893
Oil on canvas– 50 x 61 cm, Musée
Marmottan Monet, Paris – © Musée
Marmottan Monet, Paris / Bridgeman
Art / Presse
Berthe Morisot, Devant la Psyché or
Devant le Miroir, 1876 – Oil on canvas
65 x 54 cm – Musée Thyssen-Bornemisza,
Madrid © Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza,
Madrid
Berthe Morisot, Pasie cousant dans
le jardin, 1881-1882 – Oil on canvas
81 x 100 cm – Musée des beaux-arts, Pau
© Jean-Christophe Poumeyrol
Berthe Morisot, Le Cerisier, 1891 – Oil on
22
VIII
publications exploring
berthe morisot’s life and work
• Exhibition catalogue published by Éditions Hazan
Paperback with cover flaps – 220 x 285 mm – 264 pages – 200 Illustrations – Prix : 35 € TTC
ISBN: 978 2 7541 06078 – Available 1 March 2012
Edited by Marianne Mathieu, deputy director of the Musée Marmottan Monet (Collections
and Communications).
Contributors: Paloma Alarcó, head of the department of modern paintings at the ThyssenBornmisza Museum, Madrid; Emmanuelle Amiot-Saulnier, doctor of Art History, specializing
in 19th-century painting; Michèle Moyne, curator at the Palais des Beaux-arts, Lille; Lauranne
Neveu, conservation officer at the Musée Marmottan Monet; Pierre Pinchon, doctor of Art
History, specializing in 19th-century art / lecturer at the University of Paris I Sorbonne.
English edition translated by Charles Penwarden.
Contents
- Foreword, Jacques Taddei
- On Berthe Morisot, Paul Valéry
- Berthe Morisot: from Wound to Light, Jean-Marie Rouart
- Watercolours, Pastels and Drawings in the Work of Berthe Morisot, Marianne Mathieu
- Catalogue of exhibited works, Emmanuelle Amiot-Saulnier, Marianne Mathieu,
Michèle Moyne, Pierre Pinchon et Paloma Alarcó
- Catalogue of graphic works / Collection of the Musée Marmottan Monet, Lauranne Neveu
- Chronology, Marianne Mathieu
• Beaux Arts Magazine, special edition
48 pages – 22 x 28.5 cm – 9 € TTC
• Studies of Berthe Morisot and her work
- Berthe Morisot by Jean-Dominique Rey and Sylvie Patry
Translated by Louise Rogers Lalaurie. Éditions Flammarion, 2010
- Une famille dans l’impressionnisme by Jean-Marie Rouart
Gallimard, 2001
- Berthe Morisot. Le Secret de la femme en noir by Dominique Bona
Grasset, 2000
23
XI
musical evenings
Celebrating Berthe Morisot’s links with the artists of her day… Musicians, writers and
poets (Mallarmé, Paul Valery, Proust…), friends, family, shared inspiration and themes: a
series of recitals conceived as a ‘soundtrack’ to the works on display.
• Tuesday March 13, 2012 at 7 p.m.
Tendresse et rêverie, Valentina Igoshina, piano
- Chopin : Nocturne in E flat major Op.9
- Debussy: Two arabesques / La Sérénade ininterrompue / Rêverie /
Valse romantique / Nocturne, Mazurka
- Medtner: Skazka (‘Fairy Tale’) in G major Op.26
- Tchaikovsky-Rachmaninov: Lullaby
- Rachmaninov: Melody / Serenade / Polichinelle Op.3
- Kreisler-Rachmaninov: Liebesfreud
• Tuesday April 17, 2012 at 7 p.m.
Musicians from the Orchestre de Paris
Programme to be announced.
• Tuesday May 22, 2012 at 7 p.m.
Cygnes et signes (‘Swans and signs’):
Gauthier Herrmann, ‘cello, and Romain Descharmes, piano
- Duparc: Mélodies
- Fauré: Mélodies
- Chausson: Pièce
- Dvorak: Rusalka (transc.) Kild
- Saint-Saëns: Le Cygne
• Tuesday June 12, 2012 at 7 p.m.
Le Berceau (‘The Cradle’): Hugues Borsarello, violin, and Olivier Peyrebrune, piano
- Louise Farrenc: Variations concertantes sur un rhème suisse
- Fauré: Berceuse
- Saint-Saëns: Introduction and rondo capriccioso or Havanaise
- César Franck: Sonata
24
X
practical information
exhibition curators
Jacques Taddei
Marianne Mathieu
Director, Musée Marmottan Monet
Deputy director,
Lauranne Neveu
Exhibition coordinator
Musée Marmottan Monet
(Collections and Communications)
musée marmottan monet
Jacques Taddei
François Desfachelle
Directeur, Musée Marmottan Monet
Deputy director
Marie-Catherine Croix
(Administration and Finance)
Deputy director (Communications
Aurélie Gavoille
and External Relations)
Lauranne Neveu
Marianne Mathieu
Deputy director (Collections
Antonin Macé de Lépinay
Conservation officers
and Communications)
Address
Admission
2, rue Louis-Boilly – 75016 Paris
Standard: 10 euros
Web site
www.marmottan.com
Access
Metro: Muette – Line 9
RER: Boulainvilliers – Line C
Bus: 22, 32, 52, P.C.
Opening times
Open Tuesday to Sunday,
Concessions: 5 euros
Under 7s: Free
Group bookings
Christine Lecca
Tel.: 01 44 96 50 33
School groups and bookings:
Cécile Lanusse
Tel.: 01 44 96 50 41
10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Audioguide
Late-night opening Thursday until 8 p.m.
Available in French,
Closed Mondays, December 25,
English and Japanese
January 1 and May 1.
3 € TTC
media relations
Agence Catherine Dantan
Tel. : 01 40 21 05 15
Cathia Chabre
[email protected]
7, rue Charles V
or [email protected]
75004 Paris
www.catherine-dantan.fr
25

Musée Marmottan Monet 8 March – 1 July 2012

Transcription

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