Honoré Daumier and La Maison Aubert:
Political and Social Satire in Paris

19th Century Galleries
Mar 01, 2008 - Jun 01, 2008

To celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of the gifted 19th-century artist Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) the Zimmerli Art Museum has organized an exhibition featuring Daumier’s major prints and rare sculptures to emphasize the mastery of this skillful caricaturist of the July Monarchy (1830-1848) and the Second Empire (1852-1870).

The exhibition will feature Daumier’s most subversive works, which include the portrait-caricature series of The Celebrities of the Juste-Milieu (1832-35), comprised of 36 painted clay busts of politicians and other personalities of the July Monarchy. The Zimmerli Art Museum is the only American institution to own a complete set of this exceedingly rare series made from the original works now housed in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

These quickly modeled busts were kept in the workshop of publisher Charles Philipon’s La Maison Aubert,where artists referred to them to create politically charged lithographs. The series will be displayed vis-à-vis their lithographic counterparts to illustrate a still unique commission in the history of art: a series of three-dimensional statuettes made solely to be used as visual references for two-dimensional artworks.

Examples of Daumier’s non-political genre scenes, created primarily from the 1840s to the 1860s, will also be included. Daumier, an acute observer of the newly powerful bourgeoisie, recorded societal changes--ranging from fashionable pastimes of swimming and ice-skating to the new modes of transportation changing Parisian life--with verve, humor and poignancy.

The Florence Gould Foundation provided generous funding support towards the realization of this important Daumier exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, authored by Florence Quideau and Edouard Papet.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.