The Laundress: La Blanchisseuse de la place Dauphine
1894
James McNeill Whistler, Thomas Robert Way
(American, 1834–1903), (British, 1861–1913)
America
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Nineteenth-Century French Drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art
By Britany Salsbury, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Cleveland Museum of Art. Drawing transformed radically in 19th-century France, expanding from a means of artistic training to an independent medium with rich potential for exploration and experimentation. A variety of materials became available to artists—such as commercially fabricated chalks, pastels, and specialty papers— encouraging figures ranging from Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres to Paul Cezanne to reconsider the place of drawing within their artistic practices. A growing number of public and private exhibition venues began to feature their creations, building an audience attracted by the intimacy of drawings and their unique techniques and subjects. In France and abroad, museums and individuals alike started to actively acquire these works while they were still contemporary art. Nineteenth-Century French Drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art examines the history of this medium, from preparatory graphite sketches to pastels finished for public display. The publication chronicles the remarkable role that drawings—a cornerstone of the museum’s collection since its opening in 1916—have played throughout the institution’s history. Entries provide insight into nearly 50 artists and the place of drawing within their work, while five essays by leading scholars in the field present new research on the making and collecting of drawings in France during this extraordinary period. Published 2023200 pages with 148 imagesDegas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism
by Britany Salsbury, Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, The Cleveland Museum of Art, with contributions from Richard Thomson, Professor in History of Art, History of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, Aleksandra Bursac, PhD Candidate, University of Toronto, Claire White, Fellow, Director Studies, Girton College, Cambridge, and Gretchen Schultz, Professor, French and Francophone Studies, Brown University Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism is the first publication to explore Impressionist artist Edgar Degas’s representations of Parisian laundresses. These working-class women were a visible presence in the city, while washing, ironing, or carrying heavy baskets of clothing. Their job was among the most difficult, dangerous, and poorly paid at the time, forcing some to supplement their income through prostitution. The industry fascinated Degas throughout his long career, beginning in the 1850s and continuing until his final decade of work. The artworks from this series—revolutionary in their emphasis on women’s work, the strenuousness of such labor, and social class—were featured in Degas’s most significant exhibitions and praised by critics as epitomizing modernity. This richly illustrated publication accompanies an exhibition that contextualizes Degas’s series with paintings, drawings, and prints by his contemporaries—including Gustave Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—as well as artists that he influenced and was influenced by, from Honoré Daumier to Pablo Picasso. Essays by an interdisciplinary range of scholars of art history, literature, and history examine major themes from the exhibition, revealing the widespread interest that Parisians of all social classes had in the topic of laundresses during the late nineteenth century. 242 pagesOctober 2023Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art
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