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Class of 1971 Speaker Series

Class of 1971 Speaker Series

Picasso Ingres: Face to Face, Susan Siegfried ‘71

September 14, 2022

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poster for 2022 exhibition Picasso Ingres: Face to Face
Left: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 'Madame Moitessier', 1856 © The National Gallery, London.
Right: Pablo Picasso, 'Woman with a Book', 1932. The Norton Simon Foundation
© Succession Picasso/DACS 2021 / photo The Norton Simon Foundation
Currently on exhibit at The National Gallery, London through October 9, 2022. Future exhibition at the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California October 21 - January 30, 2023

Classmate Susan Siegfried, '71, PhD Harvard '80, will talk to us from her London home about the exhibition Picasso Ingres: Face to Face, currently on view at the National Gallery, London, and traveling to the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, in the fall and winter 2022-23. For the first time, Picasso's 'Woman with a Book' (1932) from the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, has been brought together with the painting that inspired it, 'Madame Moitessier' (1856) by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, in the collection of the National Gallery, London.Picasso first encountered the enigmatic 'Madame Moitessier' at an exhibition in Paris in 1921, and was enthralled. Over the next decade, he repeatedly referenced Ingres in his art, and eventually painted 'Woman with a Book' in homage to Ingres's famous portrait.

For Ingres, a 19th-century French artist steeped in the academic tradition, the beautiful and wealthy Madame Moitessier represented the classical ideal. Wearing her finest clothes and jewelry, she gazes at the viewer majestically, embodying the luxury and style of Second Empire France.

Picasso, born 100 years after Ingres, is famous for a radically different abstract style of painting, but his inspiration is clear. The model for 'Woman with a Book', Picasso's young mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, mimics Madame Moitessier's distinctive pose.

Susan's talk is a unique opportunity to consider these two paintings, shown side by side for the first time, and to trace the continuities and disruptions between 19th and 20th-century artistic developments.

During her career as professor, curator, researcher, and policy developer, Susan has focused on European Art of the 18th and 19th centuries and is a recognized Ingres scholar, notably through her monograph Ingres: Painting Reimagined (Yale University Press, 2009) and several other publications. She recently retired as the Denise Riley Collegiate Professor Emerita of the History of Art and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan after teaching there for 17 years, following previous appointments at the University of Leeds and Northwestern University. She received many research grants, organized and guest curated exhibitions at a variety of museums including the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., Kimbell Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Fogg Art Museum. Prior to returning to academe, she contributed to the development of national and international policy for information technology in the arts and humanities while working at the J. Paul Getty Trust. Her current research interests lie in the intersection of fashion and the visual arts in 18th and 19th century Europe.

Watch the recording