- Category
- Adults
Morisot, Manet, and the Matter of Independence
The annual Mary Strauss Women in the Arts lecture will be given by Emily Beeny, chief curator of the Legion of Honor, Barbara A. Wolfe Curator in Charge of European Paintings at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Berthe Morisot has often been mistaken for a pupil of Edouard Manet, the so-called father of modern painting. Though their relationship was singularly close—as friends and colleagues, painter and model, collectors of each other’s work, and ultimately members of the same family—it was characterized by mutual exchange and transformed by Morisot’s participation in the inaugural Impressionist exhibition of 1874. Offering an overview of the two artists’ intertwined lives, this talk will explore Morisot’s emergence from Manet’s shadow and her determining role in the story of modern art.
This program is supported by the Mary Strauss Women in the Arts Endowment.
About the speaker
Emily Beeny is chief curator of the Legion of Honor, Barbara A. Wolfe Curator in Charge of European Paintings at Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Beeny holds a doctorate from Columbia University and is a specialist in French paintings and drawings of the 17th through 19th centuries. She joined the Museums from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Recent exhibitions organized by Beeny include Manet and Modern Beauty (2019–20), co-organized by the Getty and the Art Institute of Chicago, which was the first exhibition devoted to the final years of the artist’s life; and Poussin and the Dance (2021–22), co-organized by the Getty and the National Gallery, London. She is a founding member of the Getty Museum’s Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion Task Force and sits on the vetting committee for 19th-century European paintings at TEFAF Maastricht.
Prior to joining the Getty Museum as associate curator of drawings in 2016, Beeny was associate curator of European art at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena (2014–16) and assistant curator of European paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2012–14). She has published and lectured widely on French art from the 17th to the 20th centuries and is the author of the children’s book Hector the Collector about collecting and museums.
Ticket information
When available, tickets for this free program may be reserved in person at the Museum’s welcome desks or through MetroTix. All tickets reserved through MetroTix incur a service charge; the service charge is waived for tickets reserved at the Museum.
