Manet: Portraying Life

This singularly important exhibition will be the first ever retrospective devoted to the portraiture of Edouard Manet. Spanning the entire career of this enigmatic and at times controversial artist, 'Manet: Portraying Life' will bring together works from across Europe, Asia and the USA.

Manet’s engagement with portraiture has never been explored in exhibition form before, despite it constituting around half of his artistic output. Manet painted his family, friends and the literary, political and artistic figures of his day, giving life not only to his subjects but also to Parisian society of the time.

The exhibition consists of more than 50 works, among them are portraits of Manet’s most frequent sitter, his wife Suzanne Leenhoff, luminaries of the period Antonin Proust, Émile Zola and Stéphane Mallarmé, and scenes from everyday life revealing Manet’s forward-thinking, modern approach to portraiture.

Organisation

'Manet: Portraying Life' has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio. The exhibition has been curated by MaryAnne Stevens, Director of Academic Affairs, Royal Academy of Arts and Dr Larry Nichols, Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Manet: Portraying Life
Édouard Manet