Daumier (1808-1879): Visions of Paris The Sackler Wing of Galleries, Royal Academy of Arts, until 26th January.
This is the first British exhibition focusing on this prolific artist for fifty years. He was certainly a social commentator on the political and social changes, including revolutions, that eventually led to the establishment of a republic.
Honore Daumier
The Defence, c. 1865
Pen and ink and watercolour
22.5 x 30 cm
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London
Photo The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London
Some one hundred and thirty works, including paintings, drawings, watercolours and sculptures are on display and many of them are making their UK debut. Daumier had a prodigious visual memory that allowed him to portray everyday life both sympathetically and critically. An anti-monarchist he was particularly adept at caricatures of the pretensions and manners of the wealthier classes. Indeed in 1832 he was imprisoned for his satirical lithographs of King Louis-Philippe and his ministers.
Honore Daumier
Salon de 1857 … Triste Contenance de la Sculpture, 22 July 1857
Lithograph, second state, album impression, hand-coloured
33 x 24.5 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of William Perkins Babcock
This show clearly shows why Daumier was praised by his contemporaries such as Delacroix and Corot as well as successive generations of artists such as Cézanne and Van Gogh, Picasso, Francis Bacon, Paula Rego and Quentin Blake Hon RA. Truly a lasting legacy.
Honoré Daumier
The Third Class Railway Carriage, 1862-64
Oil on canvas
65.4 x 90.2 cm
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence
www.royalacademy.org.uk
