Paris became the center of modern art beginning in the nineteenth century. Artists from around the world, including Delacroix, Manet, Cézanne, Cassatt, Van Gogh, Chagall, and Picasso, gathered in its studios, galleries, salons, and museums. They moved away from traditional subjects and styles and, through experimentation, actively charted a course toward abstract art. Degas to Picasso: Creating Modernism in France tells the story of modern art as it evolved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, through 150 works representing transformative movements such as Impressionism and Cubism. This exhibition focuses especially on drawings, shown alongside important paintings, sculptures, and prints, to highlight the crucial role that process and materials played in the experimentation and development of modern art.
(Image: Edgar Degas, After the Bath, Woman Drying Her Leg (Après le bain, femme s’essuyant la jambe), c.1900, charcoal, white chalk and pastel on paper, 62.5 cm x 51.5 cm, Courtesy Milwaukee Art Museum)