Buckley and Buckley, Salisbury, Conn.

Manet: The Still Life Paintings

First Major Survey Opens in France and Heads for Baltimore

PARIS, FRANCE – The first major survey devoted to the still-life paintings of Edouard Manet (1832-1883), “Manet: The Still-Life Paintings,” premieres on October 9 at the Musee d’Orsay, Paris. The exhibition will then travel to The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, its exclusive presentation in the United States, where it will be on view January 28 through April 22, 2001.

The exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Musee d’Orsay, Paris.

“Manet: The Still-Life Paintings” comprises approximately 37 paintings (including rarely seen works by this master), as well as a selection of works on paper in a variety of media, drawn from museums and private collections around the world, representing the entire range of Manet’s production in the genre.

Several figure paintings in which still life plays a salient role, such as “Portrait of Theodore Duret” (1868) and “Woman with a Pitcher” (1858-60), provide provocative clues with regard to Manet’s conception of still life as an independent genre. Samples of the artist’s private correspondence, which he decorated with deft, intimate renderings of flowers and fruit, are also included.

Although Manet is celebrated for the revolutionary character of his figure paintings, such as his 1863 masterwork “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe,” approximately 80 of Manet’s paintings – one-fifth of his oeuvre – were dedicated to still life. “A painter can say all he wants to with fruit or flowers or even clouds,” the artist once remarked.

Manet devoted himself to the genre he considered “the touchstone of the painter,” with varying degrees of intensity. Between 1862 and 1869 he produced 22 still-life paintings; only ten are known from the 1870s; and, finally, he painted 50 still lifes between 1880 and 1883.

For information, contact the American Federation of Arts at 212/988-7700.