The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has opened a new photography exhibition, "France in the Time of Manet and Morisot," running through August 23 in the Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Galleries. The free show features 50 photographs from CMA's holdings of mid-1800s France, complementing the museum's ticketed Impressionist display "Manet & Morisot." Curator Barbara Tannenbaum selected works by photographers such as Charles Marville, Édouard Baldus, and André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, including Disdéri's 1861 portrait "Monsieur Merlen," which is noted as an early precursor to the modern selfie. The photographs document historic monuments, new architecture, and figures like Sarah Bernhardt, offering a visual context for the era of painters Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot.
This exhibition matters because it deepens the understanding of the Impressionist period by showcasing the parallel development of photography, which both documented and influenced the world Manet and Morisot painted. By highlighting recent acquisitions and rarely seen works, CMA provides a free, accessible complement to its ticketed show, allowing visitors to "time-travel" to 19th-century France. The show also underscores photography's role in democratizing portraiture and launching celebrity culture, connecting historical practices to contemporary visual habits like smartphone scrolling.