A new exhibit at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) drew from more than 30 public and private collections worldwide to comprise the first exhibit focused on the portraiture of 19th century French painter Édouard Manet.
“Manet: Portraying Life” opened Oct. 7 and runs through Jan. 1. Toledo is the only American venue for the exhibition.
After TMA, the works will be exhibited at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
“This exhibit has been a long time in the making,” said TMA Director Brian Kennedy. “This is an important examination of a very important artist.” Often credited as “the father of modernity,” Manet’s style inspired many well-known Impressionists, including Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet and Edgar Degas.
“A lot has to do with what he put in and what he left out,” Kennedy said, referencing “The Railway,” Manet’s painting of a girl looking at a train. The train is not in the painting, only steam from its engine. “In the way Manet encapsulates his period, we have a window into the birth of our modernity.”
Manet was born in 1832, just as daguerreotype photography was being developed, said co-curator Lawrence Nichols, TMA’s senior curator of European and American painting and sculpture before 1900.
He painted straight portraits, which depict the physical appearance of an individual, as well as genre scenes, in which subjects became actors in representations of contemporary life in 19th century Paris.
“Manet painted his family, friends and literary, political and artistic figures of his day, often in casual settings rather than traditionally posed portraits,” according to a news release. “His subjects come to life on canvas, making the viewer curious to know more about these people and their lives.”
His portraits are representations of love, the Industrial Revolution, social unrest, war and more, Nichols said.
“He was depicting his day and he was also responding to photography, which was new,” Nichols said. “He was living in an age in which the reproduction and representation of faces was expanding exponentially with photography.”
Nichols hopes Manet’s works prompt viewers to contemplate their conception of self, something especially relevant in today’s social media-saturated culture, he said.
“It is very much about 2012 and what it means to conceive of yourself and what it means to be perceived by others,” Nichols said. “How many times do we pull out our own cameras and take pictures of family and friends or have our picture taken?”
The exhibit includes 34 oils and five pastels by Manet, Nichols said. There are also photographs, prints and books.
The pieces are on loan from museums in Europe, North America and Japan.
“Édouard Manet is one of the major artists in Western European painting tradition. Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt — Manet ranks among these, absolutely. This excites the daylights out of me,” Nichols said.
“This is a very wonderful opportunity. There will definitely be no other chance to see this number of Manets in Toledo in the very near future. It’s not exhaustive, but we have some ofthe absolute greatest [of his portraits]. The gems are here.”
The museum is located at 2445 Monroe St. Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. Sunday and closed Mondays and major holidays.
Admission to the exhibit is $8 for adults, $5 for seniors 65 and older and students age 6 to 22 and free for TMA members and children 5 and younger with a paid adult admission. An audio tour is available for $3. General admission to TMA is free. For more information, call (419) 255-8000 or visit toledomuseum.org.
