Daumier
SELECTED WORKS FROM THE ROWE COLLECTION Jean-Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) was one of nineteenth-century France’s most…
Oct 09, 2011 - Dec 31, 2011
SELECTED WORKS FROM THE ROWE COLLECTION
Jean-Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) was one of nineteenth-century France’s most popular and influential artists. Although he was a painter and sculptor, he was also a prominent printmaker. Daumier produced over four thousand lithographs, many of which were satires depicting the lighter aspects of French politics, society, and culture. This fall the BMA will host an exhibition of 169 lithographs that treat subjects such as Art, Drinking and Dining, Feminism, Gallic Life, Love and Family Life, and the Theater. Daumier made these works for illustrations in popular daily newspapers, thus providing art that could be viewed and enjoyed by all. Fourteen prints in the exhibition remain intact in the original newspapers, while the rest were long ago cut out to be appreciated as stand-alone works of art. For the 21st-century viewer, these prints bring to life the quotidian quirks of 19th-century Parisians. The poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire referred to Daumier as “one of the most important men… [not] only of caricature, but also of modern art.” While his skill as a painter and sculptor may be his greatest claim today, in his own time it was the humor, wit, and audacity evident in Art for the Masses for which Daumier was most celebrated.
Tour Dates
Birmingham Museum of Art
October 9, 2011 – January 1, 2012
Pensacola Museum of Art
April 12, 2013 – June 30, 2013