June 23 - September 13

James Tissot at musée d'Orsay

Born in Nantes, trained at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris and having pursued a career on both sides of the Channel, Jacques Joseph Tissot, is a major artist of the second half of the 19th century, both ambiguous and fascinating. If he is very regularly represented in the exhibitions dedicated to this period, this retrospective is the first dedicated to him in Paris since the one organized at the Petit Palais in 1985.


At the end of the 1850s, Tissot made his debut in the capital where his passion for Japanese art as well as his relations with the most influential circles nourished his painting. In the Parisian melting pot, at a time when the modernity theorized by Baudelaire finds its expression under the brush of Whisler, Manet or Degas, Tissot and his dandy spirit are appreciated by society society. After the war of 1870 and the Paris Commune, he moved to London and pursued a prominent career which saw him navigate in the best spheres. Little by little, his work focuses on the radiant then declining figure of his companion Kathleen Newton, constantly present in his paintings. The latter's death in 1882 sealed Tissot's return to France.


His career continued in the description of the multiple variations of the Parisienne, the object of a large cycle ( La Femme à Paris ), and the explorations of mystical and religious subjects, with the cycle of the Prodigal Son and the hundreds of illustrations of the Bible , which will make the artist immensely famous at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. Centered on the figure of James Tissot, ensuring to anchor the art of this painter in the artistic and social context of his time, this exhibition presents the great successes of an artist with often iconic images, and his most daring research.