All families are complicated, but the family of Édouard Manet (1832–1883) was more complicated than most. The artist married a piano teacher who worked for his wealthy parents. Her son, born out of wedlock, may have been Édouard’s, his father’s, or another man’s. For all its complexities, Manet’s family fueled his creativity. They were his most frequent models, and supported him emotionally and financially. Manet: A Model Family is an innovative new exploration of the largely neglected story of the importance of Manet’s family to his art.
Presenting new research on works in which Manet depicted family members, Manet: A Model Family shows how an understanding of the artist’s family sheds crucial light on his artistic career. Manet’s mother, wife, stepson, and other relatives—including his sister-in-law, the painter Berthe Morisot—are given long overdue recognition for their roles in Manet’s life and work. Leading scholars present technical and archival analysis, including redating Madame Auguste Manet, an important, newly conserved painting of Manet’s mother. In an essay inspired by that canvas, Pulitzer Prize–winning critic Hilton Als reconsiders Manet’s formative relationship with his mother and his bourgeois Parisian roots.
With its original account of Manet’s domestic relationships and personal life, Manet: A Model Family humanizes the artist and his contributions to the birth of modernism.
Published in association with the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
Exhibition Schedule
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston
October 10, 2024–January 20, 2025
Awards and Recognition
- An Art Newspaper Best Art Book Hitting the Shelves this Autumn
Diana Seave Greenwald is the William and Lia Poorvu Curator of the Collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. She is the author of Painting by Numbers: Data-Driven Histories of Nineteenth-Century Art and, with Nathaniel Silver, Isabella Stewart Gardner: A Life. She is also the editor of Betye Saar: Heart of a Wanderer and, with Casey Riley, Fellow Wanderer: Isabella Stewart Gardner’s Travel Albums (all Princeton).
"[An] excellent catalog."—Lloyd Schwartz, WBUR
"A Model Family, somber and intimate, explores the emotional underpinnings of an artist who changed the art world forever."—Murray Whyte, Boston Globe
"[A] remarkable book. . . . [A Model Family] delves into the fascinating dynamics of Manet’s familial connections and through essays from various scholars it paints a complex portrait of both the man and the artist. . . . For those of us who appreciate art in its cultural and historical context, this book offers something really special, a multifaceted exploration of the personal and the professional , the domestic and the public."—Megan Fox Kelly, Reading the Art World podcast
"Manet: A Model Family aims to reinstate quotidian clutter into the story of how Éduard Manet emerged in the 1860s as the great painter of modern life. . . . [A]s Greenwald and her colleagues make clear, it is just such tensions about legitimacy and illegitimacy, about who may look, who may paint, who may play and who must serve coffee, that had a profound impact on the management of Manet’s legacy."—Kathryn Hughes, Times Literary Supplement
"Manet: A Model Family is most commendable: seven smart essays of various stripes; numerous full-page details of great pictures; a chronology and biographies of family members; engaging catalogue entries on the paintings by Manet on view at the Gardner; and, last but not least, an index that works like a charm."—Trevor Fairbrother, The Arts Fuse
"A beautiful catalog."—Jared Bowen, The Culture Show podcast
"Édouard Manet’s relationships were often as enigmatic as his subjects. . . . Family remained a poignant source of mystery and power throughout the career of this revolutionary artist."—Ann Landi, Wall Street Journal
