OLYMPIA, Edouard Manet 1863, oil on canvas, 130.5 cm x 191 cm

Shocking then – and shocking now?  This talk explores an icon of modern art, which hangs in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and which, in 2025, celebrates 150 years of controversy.  We will follow its history from first exhibition in 1865, at the Paris Salon, looking at reviewers’ responses (outraged!) and ask how the painting became a symbol of early modernism while sustaining its iconoclastic status.  And we will address its legacy, when it remains a touchstone for many artists today, whose interpretations this talk will also feature.  

No knowledge of art / art-history required but be prepared to acquire a potted history of modernist visual art.  Copiously illustrated.

Wine and nibbles will be available in the interval.
 

Dr Mary Anne Francis is a lecturer, artist and writer.  For many years she taught Fine Art at the University of Brighton, and was a Research Fellow at Chelsea College of Art & Design, London.  She published her first art review in the Times Literary Supplement when she was twenty-four, and more recently, her first book: Mixed Forms of Visual Culture: From the Cabinet of Curiosities to Digital Diversity (Bloomsbury).  She has artwork in Tate, British Museum and London Transport collections among others. Mary Anne encourages her audiences to enjoy the process of discovery and, if so inclined, participate in discussion.