Picturing the Artist's Studio, from Delacroix to Picasso

This richly diverse study examines the evolving image and contested status of the artist in late nineteenth-century France through the lens of the artist’ s studio, which became a central theme in art and literature, stretching from Balzac to Proust and from Corot to Picasso. The studio was a hybrid space that blurred the distinctions between public and private, professional and domestic, artistic production and display. Besides a material space for art making, the studio was a social and commercial nexus and an extension of the artist’ s persona. Drawing on paintings, prints, photographs, and primary sources ranging from memoirs to popular journals, this book sheds new light on the modern studio’ s heightened significance as a laboratory of creative struggle and a platform for self-expression and the staging of artistic identity. Breaking new ground in focusing on the intersecting issues of artistic identity and the evolving role of the studio as creative arena, social and commercial locus, and informal exhibition space, McPherson allows us to participate in the popular ritual of visiting the artist’ s studio.

Heather McPherson is Professor Emerita of Art History at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is the author of The Modern Portrait in Nineteenth-Century France (2001) and Art and Celebrity in the Age of Reynolds and Siddons (2017), and has published widely on nineteenth-century French art and visual culture, focusing in particular on portraiture.

Introduction: The Artist’ s Studio: Theme and Variations; 1 The Echo Chamber: Delacroix, Manet, and the Old Masters; 2 Absence and Presence: Corot’ s Studio Revisited; 3 The Virtual Studio: Bazille, Daubigny, and Monet; 4 Impromptu Studios: Berthe Morisot to Marie Laurencin; 5 The Refracted Studio: Matisse and Picasso; Notes; Select Bibliography; Index