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Exhibition at Dallas Museum of Art explores the legacy of Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot, Woman at Her Toilette

Berthe Morisot, Woman at Her Toilette, 1875–1880, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago, Inv. no. 1924.127, Photo courtesy The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY; Berthe Morisot.

Berthe Morisot at Dallas Museum of Art Major international exhibition explore the legacy of a founding member of Impressionism, Berthe Morisot. Dallas Museum of Art, February 24–May 26, 2019]]>

Source: Dallas Museum of Art

Co-organized by the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (Québec City, Canada), the Barnes Foundation (Philadelphia, PA), the Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, TX), and the Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France); ”Berthe Morisot, Woman Impressionist” focuses on the artist’s figure paintings and portraits through approximately 50 to 60 paintings from both public institutions and private collections. This tour is the first dedicated presentation of Morisot’s work to be held in the United States since 1987.

One of the founding members of the French Impressionists, Berthe Morisot was celebrated in her time as one of the leaders of the group, and her innovative works were coveted by dealers and collectors alike. Despite her accomplishments, today she is not as well-known as her Impressionist colleagues, such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Co-curated by Sylvie Patry, Chief Curator/Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs and Collections at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris and Consulting Curator at the Barnes Foundation, and Nicole R. Myers, The Lillian and James H. Clark Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at the Dallas Museum of Art, “Berthe Morisot, Woman Impressionist” both illuminates and reasserts Morisot’s role as an essential figure within the Impressionist movement and the development of modern art in Paris in the second half of the 19th century.

The exhibition traces the exceptional path of a female painter who, in opposition to the norms of her time and social background, became an important member of the Parisian avant-garde from the late 1860s until her untimely death in 1895. Through her portrayal of the human figure, Morisot was able to explore the themes of modern life that came to define Impressionism, such as the intimacy of contemporary bourgeois living and leisure activities, the importance of female fashion and the toilette, and women’s domestic work, all while blurring the lines between interior and exterior, public and private, finished and unfinished.

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Exhibition at Dallas Museum of Art explores the legacy of Berthe Morisot