Guest Blog: Kalisha Jacobson on the Musée d’Orsay’s Lack

A few days ago I went to the Musée d’Orsay to re-familiarize myself with the permanent collection and to see the boldly progressive exhibit “Crime et Châtiment.” The exhibit was excellent and due to current re-modeling the hanging of the museum’s regular holdings were fairly limited. As an avid admirer of many women artists during the later 19th century, especially women impressionists, I found myself sorely disappointed and even rashly infuriated upon discovering that throughout entire main floor there was only 1 painting by famed artist Berthe Morisot and 1 painting by the well-known Mary Cassatt. Indeed, while I was also happy to enjoy the room full of Corot’s that proceeded the monumental presentation of Rosa Bonheur’s Plowing in the Nivernais, I was surprised to find no other representation by this artist who was admittedly more widely admired and financially successful than any male peer of her time. In fact, my searches showed that at the Orsay museum women are only subjects (read: objects) displayed on their hallowed walls, yet are given no space to speak as author of these images. One must first plow through the rooms (yes rooms) of Monets, Manets, Courbets, Renoirs, and Gauguin’s Tahitian women in order to find a sliver of a real woman’s experience or a fully-clothed figure.

Anyone who has taken even the smallest introduction to feminist theory will know that the 1970s was a period of radical re-adjustment in the art world as scholars sought to add more names to the singular woman artist featured in their current textbooks and to recover important women that had been lost to history. This called for an entire re-examination on the way that we view women’s role in the artistic world.

Many people consider the “woman issue” to be a cause already completed, because we now live in a world where sexism obviously isn’t allowed to pervade our businesses, homes, and societies, let alone our museums housing national treasures that preserve timeless masterpieces that remain accepted and unchallenged by the critical eye.

Nevertheless, here I found myself at the limited showing of the Musée d’Orsay, which boasts one of the most extensive collections of the period, and claims to be the French authority on everything from Realism to Symbolism. I am shocked that such blatant ignorance of women in art is still prevalent at such a prestigious institution. Admittedly, there are greater holdings by many prominent women artists at other institutions in Paris (Berthe Morisot at the Musée Marmottan & Camille Claudel at the Musée Rodin), but I believe that this does not excuse the Orsay. As a museum whose new leadership professes to see into contemporary art history theory & technique, challenging the way things have always been done at this institution and initializing new bold exhibitions, I think that they could use an introduction to feminist interventions in the histories of art.

The purpose of this post is to bring to your attention that the “woman question” has not been answered or resolved, especially not in some of the most prestigious and frequented collections that are visited by millions each year.