Growing Up with the Impressionists: The Diary of Julie Manet

Julie Manet, the daughter of Édouard Manet and the most famous female Impressionist artist, Berthe Morisot, was born in Paris on November 14 into a wealthy and cultured milieu at the height of the Impressionist era. Many young girls still confide their inner thoughts to diaries, and it is hardly surprising that, with her mother giving all her encouragement, Julie would prove to be no exception to the rule.

At the age of 10, Julie began writing her “memoirs,” but it wasn’t until August 1893, at 14, that Julie began her diary in earnest: no neat, leather-bound volume with lock and key, but just untidy notes scribbled in old exercise books, often in pencil, the presentation as spontaneous as its contents. Her extraordinary diary―newly translated here by Jane Roberts, an expert of Impressionism―reveals a vivid depiction of a vital period in France’s cultural history, seen through the youthful and precocious eyes of the youngest member of what was surely the most prominent artistic families of the time. Her notes provide fascinating insights into the lives of French painters, including Renoir, Degas, Monet, and Sisley, as well the 1896 state visit of Tsar Nicholas II and the Dreyfus Affair, which was then raging in France.

Related U.S. Impressionist Exhibitions:

Berthe Morisot Exhibition
https://www.barnesfoundation.org/whats-on/morisot

Begins June 20, 2018 - Québec
Winter 2018 - Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia
February to May 2019 - Dallas
June to September 19, 2019 - Musee d'Orsay

WOMEN ARTISTS IN THE AGE OF IMPRESSIONISM
http://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/her-paris-women-artists-age-impressionism

Begins October 22, 2017 - Denver Art Museum
February to May 2018 - Speed Art Museum, Louisville
June to September 2018 - Clark Williamstown