Museums in Paris: Musée d'Orsay #2

We recently returned to the Musée d'Orsay and viewed a temporary exhibition, Le modèle noir, de Géricault à Matisse.  

Etude d'après un modèle féminin pour "A vendre, esclaves au Caire" by Jean-Léon Gérôme

The exhibition focuses on the depiction of people of color in French painting from the era of slavery to the 20th century.  

According to Musee-orsay.fr, "Taking a multi-disciplinary approach that combines the history of art and the history of ideas, this exhibition explores aesthetic, political, social and racial issues as well as the imagery unveiled by the representation of black figures in visual arts, from the abolition of slavery in France (1794) to the modern day. Designed to provide a long-term perspective, the exhibition looks more particularly at three key periods: the era of abolition (1794-1848), the new painting era up to the Matisse’s discovery of the Harlem Renaissance and the early 20th century avant-garde movement and the successive generations of post-war and contemporary artists." 

"The exhibition primarily focuses on the question of models, and therefore the dialogue between the artist who paints, sculpts, engraves or photographs and the model who poses. It notably explores the way in which the representation of black subjects in major works by Théodore Géricault, Charles Cordier, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne and Henri Matisse, as well as the photographs of Nadar and Carjat, evolved." 

Here are a few of the many paintings in the exhibition.  

The next painting, Olympia by Manet (1863), is the central focus of the exhibition.   

Manet's Olympia was both criticized and lauded.  It was lauded by one of the great artists of the period.  Paul Cezanne painted a copy of Manet's Olympia.

 
Paul Gaugin likewise painted a copy.

We especially liked seeing the Larry Rivers sculpture that is pictured below.  The sculpture is a not-so-subtle parody of Manet's Olympia.  

Thanks for visiting the Musée d'Orsay with us.  

P.S.  On the same day we visited the exhibition Le modèle noir , we saw part of the 1988 film Coming to America with Eddie Murphy.  When Murphy's character visits the home of his successful, prideful  boss, we get to see another parody of a Manet painting.  In the photo below, over the fireplace, you can spot a copy of Manet's painting A Bar at the Folies-Bergère.

Of course, the copy is changed--the subject is now a woman of color wearing a red dress (photograph below).

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Here is a photograph of the original.