Manet’s Modern Moment

“I thought we could take this interview to the galleries and look at the paintings while we talk,” suggests Gloria Groom, Chair of European Painting and Sculpture and David and Mary Winton Green Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). I am here to discuss her latest show Manet and Modern Beauty. Her “in-person” style comes as no surprise when considering her public exhibitions of the past. Museum-goers have experienced a re-creation of Van Gogh’s bedroom to accompany paintings of the same setting and walked on green turf flooring with the sound of chirping birds playing to evoke the outdoors of Monet’s Luncheon On The Grass. Such is the joie de vivre that has earned Groom’s curatorial creativity raves at home and abroad. No wonder it was Groom who received one of the first calls from a J. Paul Getty Museum colleague shortly after the auction hammer went down in 2014, and the Los Angeles institution acquired Manet’s iconic Jeanne (Spring). “I knew we had to do a show around this painting!” exclaims Groom, and thus began the collaboration for Manet and Modern Beauty premiering May 26 and running through September 8, 2019, at the AIC.

The focus is on the late 1870s through 1883, the final and as Groom reveals, some of the finest years of Manet’s career. He had been known as a man about town, frequenting cafés, and the opera, but now was suffering from the complications of tertiary syphilis and increasingly limited to work in his studio and in the suburbs where he spent summers. “He was an excellent communicator,” explains Groom, describing the many illustrated letters that the artist had sent from the countryside to Paris. “Manet starts making his own stationery and decorates the correspondence with sketches of little flowers or a hat that reminds him of one a friend once wore—similar to the way emojis are added to a text.” Soon, and without the glorification of social media, he invites his close friends and patrons to visit him in the countryside. But it is in Paris where these invitations bear fruit, “his studio becomes the upbeat hangout for looking and even 5 o’clock drinks,” says Groom. Manet also starts using pastels in addition to oils, in part because they are easier to manage. Groom does mention how interesting it is, however, that Manet is still purchasing and working on primed canvas rather than the traditional paper support used for pastels. This transition enables his oeuvre to take on a more direct quality, perhaps as an acknowledgment of the effects of age and illness, displaying an awareness of his internal and external surroundings.

Jeanne (Spring), done in 1881 and presented at the Paris Salon in 1882, depicts Jeanne Demarsy, a budding Parisienne actress of the time. She is portrayed in profile, elegant in a highly fashionable day dress with matching parasol and gloves—an ensemble selected by Manet, and presented against a background of blossoming green foliage and flowers. Similarly, Autumn (Méry Laurent) of 1882, presents sitter Méry Laurent wearing a dark fur trimmed design by renowned couturier Charles Worth. Manet had seen the piece in Laurent’s wardrobe and even asked her to pass it on to him after she tired of it. With Jeanne (Spring) especially, he takes on the role of stylist in every form. He chooses the clothing and fabricates the outdoor scenery in the studio setting.

Groom presents the example of Manet’s Woman Reading, 1880/1881, a well-dressed woman skimming an illustrated journal, and seated at a marble-top table amidst what appears to be a city garden background. There are, however, curiosities such as why the figure is dressed in a dark wintery outfit when it looks to be a beautiful spring-like day. Only recently the answer to that question has been answered by the recognition that the bluish form to her right, which matches the blue on the inside of the jacket material, is actually more than just an accent. It shows part of the watering can that is clearly evident in his paintings of the gardens at Bellevue where he spent the summer and fall in 1880. So here, as Groom continues, “Manet has used one of his own paintings as the backdrop for the model he posed in the studio to create the illusion of this modern café goer.”

Groom has been awarded both a Knight and an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French Government. “Without her, France would be less known and less loved,” once stated the Ambassador to France. Groom speaks fluent French and loves fashion, especially vintage, “I like the idea of someone else wearing a piece—it is the historian in me.” During frequent work trips to Paris, schedule permitting, a favorite stop is the department store Au Printemps along Boulevard Haussmann, where Manet and his contemporaries would have also strolled over a century ago. Wandering with Groom as school groups and tourists peer at paintings and snap iPhone photos, I notice how she surveys the crowd with a keen sense of observation—as Manet did—knowing audiences will come to see the artist’s work in a new light.

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