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The Arts Intel Report

Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism

Berthe Morisot, Apollo revealing his divinity to the shepherdess Issé, after François Boucher, 1892.

Mar 31 – Sept 10, 2023
Dulwich Picture Gallery, Gallery Rd, Dulwich, London SE21 7AD, UK

Berthe Morisot’s career began in 1864, when she exhibited her work at the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Acceptance to the annual exhibition was difficult, but Morisot participated for six years running. That is until 1874, when she abandoned the salon to join the “rejects”—Cézanne, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, who were showing at Nadar’s pokey studio at 51 Rue d’Anjou. Twenty years later, the art critic Gustave Geffroy named Morisot one of Impressionism’s “Les Trois Grandes Dames,” alongside Mary Cassatt and Marie Bracquemond. In Dulwich, 30 masterpieces trace her trailblazing career. The work will be hung alongside paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Fragonard, who, as new research suggests, influenced Morisot’s artistic vision. —Elena Clavarino

Photo: © Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris