Manet: Models, Portraits, and La Vie Moderne

Despite a strong interest in the human figure, and the notoriety of his early works at the Paris Salons, Edouard Manet had a marked lack of success as a portrait painter. Nevertheless, his friendship with Isabelle Lemonnier, the model for the bold portrait at the Dallas Museum of Art, led to an extraordinary series of formal and informal portraits of her in the latter phase of Manet's career. Dr. Nancy Locke, Associate Professor of Art History, Penn State University, will highlight the role of portraiture in Manet's modern-life project and will offer fresh insights into the panache of the Museum's remarkable portrait of Isabelle Lemonnier.