“That’s always been my principal concern, to make sure of getting regular sittings.” So said 19th Century painter and portraitist, Édouard Manet, to his friend, Antonin Proust.

“Whenever I start something, I’m always afraid the model will let me down… They come, they pose, then away they go, telling themselves that he can finish it off on his own. Well no, one can’t finish anything on one’s own, particularly since one only finishes on the day one starts, and that means starting often and having plenty of days available.”

This summer, The Art Institute of Chicago is featuring Édouard Manet’s portraits in Manet and Modern Beauty. The exhibit focuses on works created from the late 1870s forward, when Manet’s reputation was just starting to soar.

‘This exhibition,’ we read, ‘is the first to focus on this important period in the artist’s career, bringing together an impressive array of portraits of fashionable women—favorite actresses and models, bourgeois women of his acquaintance, and his wife—as well as intimate male friends.’

With Jeanne (Spring), his 1881 portrait of model-actress Jeanne Demarsy, Manet was finally, widely lauded. He died two years later.

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Manet. Jeanne (Spring). 1881

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Woman Reading. 1880 or 81

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Autumn (Méry Laurent). 1881 or 82

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In the Conservatory. ~1887-89

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Boating. 1874-75

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Portrait of Émilie Ambre as Carmen. 1880

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The Café-Concert. ~ 1878-89

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Manet and Modern Beauty is scheduled to run at The Art Institute of Chicago until September 8, 2019.

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Header: Plum Brandy. ~1877