Final Events for Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay Exhibition

Final Day of the Exhibition is Monday, June 22

Pasadena, CA—The Norton Simon Museum concludes its installation of three paintings from the Musée d’Orsay’s renowned art collection: Édouard Manet’s Émile Zola, 1868, James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, 1871 (also known as Portrait of the Artist’s Mother), and Paul Cézanne’s The Card Players, 1892–96. These paintings are installed together in the Norton Simon Museum’s 19^th-century wing, alongside paintings from the Simon collection by Manet, Cézanne and their contemporaries. The exhibition, titled Tête-à-tête: Three Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, marks the first time the Manet and Cezanne paintings have been on view in Southern California. The Whistler, one of the icons of American art, was last on view in 1933.  

Upcoming highlights include:

Lecture
Manet and His Writers: Baudelaire, Zola, Mallarmé
Saturday, May 23, 4:00–5:00 p.m.
Emily A. Beeny, Associate Curator, Norton Simon Museum
Émile Zola, memorialized in Manet’s famous portrait, was not the only writer with whom Manet’s reputation was linked over the course of his career. The artist developed relationships with a number of French writers including three who were perhaps the most influential of their age: the late-Romantic poet Charles Baudelaire, the Naturalist novelist Émile Zola, and the elegant, elusive Symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé. Serving respectively as a mentor, an ally and a friend, Baudelaire, Zola and Mallarmé each saw something of himself in Manet and each bequeathed to posterity a different idea of the artist.

Memorial Day
Monday, May 25, 12:00–5:00 p.m.
The Museum is open for the Memorial Day holiday.

Guided Tours
Masters of Tomorrow: Manet, Degas, Whistler and Cézanne
Thursday, May 28, June 4, and June 11, 2:00–3:00 p.m.
Celebrated French author Émile Zola described the then-unrecognized Manet as a "master of tomorrow." View remarkable works of art by 19^th-century masters including Manet, Degas, Whistler, Cézanne and others. Online registration is required for these tours and can be completed at nortonsimon.org/events.

Free Friday Night
Friday, June 5, 5:00–8:00 p.m.
The Norton Simon Museum offers free admission to all. Free timed tickets for Tête-à-tête are given out at the admissions desk starting at 5:00 p.m. Spend an enchanting evening enjoying the Museum’s galleries and garden.

Film
Le Cousin Jules
Friday, June 12, 6:00–7:30 p.m.
Directed by Dominique Benicheti
The documentary Le Cousin Jules is a rare combination of sophisticated movie-making technique and an ode to the beauty of rural France, capturing the simplicity of daily peasant life, and the nearly wordless intimacy of a lifelong relationship. Over a five-year period, director Dominique Benicheti filmed the rhythms and rituals of blacksmith Jules Guiteaux and his wife Félicie, as Jules dons wooden clogs and leather apron to begin work in his shop, while Félicie tends a vegetable garden and prepares their meals. A ravishing and immersive work, the film allows viewers to enter not only into the subjects’ world, but also the very rhythms of their lives – providing a record of a time and a way of life that have long since vanished. Awarded the jury prize at the Locarno Film Festival in 1973 and widely acclaimed around the world, the film was beautifully restored in 2012. Not rated. In French, with English subtitles.