Manet & Morisot, Legion of Honor, Fine Art Museums of San Francisco

Installation view of "Manet & Morisot" at the de Young Museum, San Francisco, 2025. Photograph by Gary Sexton. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

By Robert Brokl

The splendid Manet & Morisot exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco could just as easily have been entitled Morisot & Manet. One needn’t play the “who’s better” game to acknowledge that Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) is not as well known to the general public as Édouard Manet (1832-1883), the creator of such canonical images as Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass. Nevertheless, with this exhibit, Morisot establishes herself as a painter deserving of equal stature, despite the obstacles she faced as a woman of that era. The show, years in the works, arrives at a timely moment when backward cultural forces, promoting neoclassical architecture and Norman Rockwell-style illustration, are attempting to undo the “opening of the field” to slighted and marginalized artists.

Manet & Morisot was organized by Emily A. Beeny, chief curator of the Legion of Honor and Barbara A. Wolfe, Curator in Charge of European Paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and their counterparts at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the only other venue for the this show in the U.S. Beeny contributes the illuminating lead essay to the doorstopper of a catalog.

The dominant theme, established in the first gallery, is the complicated, mutually beneficial relationship of Manet and Morisot. Beery writes: “Unfolding over roughly fifteen years—between about 1868 and 1883—theirs was surely the closest relationship between any two members of the Impressionist circle: as friends and colleagues, painter and model, collectors of each other’s work, and, following her marriage to his brother Eugène Manet (1832-1892), family.“

Édouard Manet "The Balcony," 1868-69 Oil on canvas, 66 15/16 x 49 3/16 in., (170 x 125 cm) Musée d'Orsay © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY

The Balcony (1868-1869) enjoys pride of place—beckoning from the foyer and the first picture one encounters entering the exhibit.  Oversized and shimmering under glass and thick varnish (look carefully to see subtle restoration), the image depicts figures on a balcony, framed by viridian green ornate railing and shutters. This color, mixed with lead white, is not found in nature. Otherwise, the predominant colors are black and white. Morisot, in her first appearance as a model for Manet, sits holding a fan, leaning on the railing, and gazing outward. Her expression is arresting—smoldering and intense. The other figures seem ethereal by comparison, a woman to her right and a rather bourgeois and hefty man standing behind, smoking. But Morisot, with her mane of black hair and billowy white dress, is the star and focus. This painting marks the beginning of the collaboration between Manet and Morisot. 

Édouard Manet "Boating," 1874/1879 Oil on canvas, 38 1/4 x 51 1/4 in. (97.2 x 130.2 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Both came from families of the upper bourgeoisie, with “substantial means.” But Morisot, as a proper lady, was expected to behave in proper ways, and was accompanied at posing sessions by relatives or friends. However, Morisot, as a painter herself, was no passive muse and model. Manet captures her vivacity, and over the passage of time, her joys, charm, sorrow, and even distress, as in Berthe Morisot in Muff (1871-1872), from the Siege of Paris period with widespread deprivation, hunger, fear, and a bloody putdown of rebellion. Her intelligence and delight is captured in a highlight of the exhibit, Berthe Morisot with a Bouquet of Violets. The paint handling is fresh and genuinely spontaneous (Manet could fake that), Morisot’s coiffure is ruffled, her eyes are amused—it’s as candid as a snapshot, if not also a “self-portrait” as the catalog essay and wall label assert. 

Berthe Morisot Reclining (1873) is a close-up of Morisot’s handsome face and black dress, against a rich brown background. A small painting, evidently trimmed by Manet before its sale, perhaps because she was already intended for Èugene Manet. The earlier version had her lounging on a couch, a pose considered too racy for a proper woman of their social class. A painting of her displaying her engagement ring also represents his last portrait of her (she never reversed roles and painted him), but their involvement continued, and their influence on each other’s painting. 

The issue of whether Manet and Morisot actually had an affair is raised in the catalog. Beeny emphatically rules out the possibility: “…Manet was married when the two artists met, and, for a woman of Morisot’s class and unfailing social correctness, there can have been no question of a sexual relationship.” In another catalog essay, Isabel Pludermacher writes: “The equivocal nature of several scenes suggests that she herself instigated them, since her social status would not have allowed Manet to play so openly on the codes of seduction without her consent. It is hard not to sense a reciprocal attraction between painter and model, sublimated into painting. For painting has the power to express submerged desire.” Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee, author of Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism, takes a contrarian view, suggesting Manet “…was an artistic and political rebel…people’s behavior only sometimes conforms to class expectations…When we look at Manet’s portraits of Morisot, he was moved, aroused, in love.” 

Édouard Manet "Boating," 1874/1879 Oil on canvas, 38 1/4 x 51 1/4 in. (97.2 x 130.2 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

After these portraits, the exhibition then expands to reveal Manet’s and Morisot’s evolution over time, in life and art. Manet was, at heart, a studio painter. He often worked from sketches made from life, but his paintings were generally planned out and revised over time, while also attempting to convey spontaneity. Morisot’s inclinations were the opposite—a plein air landscape painter, she worked quickly, responding to light, weather, and movement. This distinction is shown in their varying treatment of beaches. Morisot’s On the Beach at Petites-Dalles or Fécamp (1873) is an assured and deft, but simplified, impression, whereas Manet’s On the Beach Boulogne-sur-Mer (1869) is more illustrative and static. The same comparison could be made between Boating (1874-1876), another well-known Manet, with the boatman as crisp as a cutout. However, the female figure, depicted in a dramatically different manner with fluttery brush strokes, shows the influence of Morisot and Manet responding. Morisot’s own boating scene, Lake in the Bois de Boulogne, aka Summer’s Day (1879), hangs next to Boating. In her painting, two women are depicted with lively paint strokes, as are the busy ducks nearby. Monet’s Impressionist haystacks and cathedral facades come to mind. 

Berthe Morisot "Intérieur," 1872 Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 28 11/16 in. (59.944 x 72.898 cm) Private Collection Photograph by Randy Dodson, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Manet wasn’t just influenced by Morisot’s paint handling but also by her subject matter. As a woman of a certain class and respectability, where even depictions of lounging and comfortable slippers could imply demimonde denizens, she was restricted in her activities and pursuits. It’s noteworthy that Manet enjoyed a “designated studio,” while Morisot worked in her home. Interiors provided relief from rigid supervision and dress, and the themes of women and children, like her contemporary Mary Cassatt, allow subject matter and familiar settings close at hand. She had the confidence and determination to not resist homely “genre” scenes, but to depict “moments of being” with subtlety and nuance, as in Interior (1872-1873 with the seated, introspective sitter in black, rather overwhelmed by a vigorous potted plant, and the earlier Young Woman at Her Window (1869), a portrait of her sister sitting in a room with open window, looking through a railing onto a balcony, a psychologically different treatment of figures and balconies, public and private spaces, than Manet’s Balcony painting of the same year. These reflective figures deep in their private thoughts are reminiscent of Vermeer’s women—domestic and mysterious. Coinciding with his deteriorating health resulting from advanced syphilis, Manet followed Morisot’s lead with subject matter as well—still lifes, bouquets, and interiors, although he would often improvise settings. 

Édouard Manet "Before the Mirror (Devant la glace)," 1877 Oil on canvas, 36 5/8 x 28 3/16 in. (93 x 71.6 cm) Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 1978 Image courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation / Art Resource, NY

Manet was worldly, a bon vivant, and an extrovert. Morisot made a wise decision marrying Manet’s younger brother, with whom she had a daughter, Julie, whom she adored. Eugène Manet promoted his wife’s work and posed willingly. Édouard Manet’s home life seems less sanguine, as suggested by the unfinished painting Interior at Arcachon (1871). Reunited after a six-month separation during the Siege of Paris, his wife, Suzanne, is seen in profile, looking out to sea, and his son, Leon, of “uncertain parentage,” gazes listlessly. Manet may have opted to leave unfinished, then abandon, a sad and equivocal reminder of domestic relations, but his attention doesn’t flag with Before the Mirror (1877), a painting of a woman seen from behind, tying or untying her corset. The shoulders and upper arms are bare, the corset strap drooping from her arm, the cause of John Singer Sargent’s Madame X (1884) scandal. Morisot’s superficially similar scene, Woman at a Toilette (ca. 1879-1880) depicts a woman at her dressing table. While the figure is likely a model, the dressing table is Morisot’s own. All shimmery light and silvery color, the woman’s face is mostly obscured as she attends to her appearance. 

Édouard Manet "Young Woman in a Rounded Hat," 1879 Oil on canvas, 22 1/16 x 18 1/2 in. (56 x 47 cm) The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation on loan since 1976 to the Princeton University Art Museum Image courtesy of Princeton University Art Museum / Art Resource, NY

These two paintings are hung side by side, along with the assertion that this is Manet’s “most ‘Morisotian’ painting in his oeuvre.” However, Manet’s painting is erotically charged. The woman, presumably disrobing, displays a waist far too small, and unfortunately suggests the current trend of celebrities like Kim Kardashian, rumored to have had their ribs broken to create hourglass figures. ”Male gaze” indeed. “Erotic” is used to describe Woman in a Round Hat (1879), a portrait of a forbidding, mannish woman with a large nose and a suggestion of an Adam’s apple. 

Sadly, neither Manet nor Morisot lived past middle age. Manet died at 51; his last work includes the lovely, very modern-looking portrait of Julie Manet, sitting on a water can. Unfinished or not, it’s gestural and painterly like a de Kooning. But the show and even the catalog (but not the Fine Arts Magazine) skirt advanced syphilis as the cause of his death, with a grim leg amputation at the end, besides. Morisot witnessed his suffering. Her loyalty and respect for his work continued after his death; along with her husband, she even bought several pieces at the auction of his studio’s contents, and surrounded herself with his work. With his friends and supporters like Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, she and her husband worked to ensure his masterworks passed into museums. Morisot made it to age 54, but she caught pneumonia while nursing Julie with influenza. Her friends and fellow artists went on promoting her work.

Manet & Morisot

Legion of Honor, Fine Art Museums of San Francisco

October 11, 2025—March 1, 2026