While popular in the 1700s and into the 1800s, work in the medium of pastels was synonymous with fragility and femininity, and a “pastelist” was seen as an artist who veered away from traditional oil painting—at the cost of status and posterity. This prejudice began to change in the mid 1800s, when the hands that grabbed the pastel stick belonged to Eugène Boudin, Odilon Redon, and Edgar Degas. Major reappraisal and embrace of the medium came with the 20th century. Iridescence, immediacy, “Powder and Light” focuses on that moment and on those who used and approved of pastels, artists such as Pablo Picasso and Joan Miró. —Elena Clavarino