Creatures of the Night: Women in Paris from 1850-1900

Women in Paris gained more rights in Paris toward the end of the 1800s, and nightfall offered the perfect cover for a variety of their activities from the innocent to illicit. The public feared women’s shifting role from motherhood to independent woman. These feelings played out in popular media and fine art, with artists using their work to express individual and national anxieties. The works featured in this gallery by artists such as Edouard Manet, Eugène Grasset, and Odilon Redon reflect those fears through the character of the femme fatale, or “fatal women.”

The exhibition of works on paper in Gallery P28 changes every twelve months to highlight the variety of the collection, and to limit exposure of the light-sensitive pigments.

For groups interested in learning more about the artwork on view in this exhibition, please request a Europeon Art Collection tour and request in the notes that the exhibition be included as part of the tour.

Image: Odilon Redon, French (1840-1916). Salomé with the Head of Saint John the Baptist, ca. 1880-1885. Charcoal and black chalk on tan paper, 8 5/8 x 7 13/16 inches. Bequest of Milton McGreevy, 81-30/67.