The Gallery The Manet Many Don't Know
March 31, 2011
Martigny, Switzerland An 1874 newspaper caricature displayed in the Manet retrospective at the Gianadda Foundation here portrays the genial, bearded artist, a tiny crown askew on his head, borne on a giant palette by four acolytes; the heading is ``King of the Impressionists.'' Although he never once exhibited in an impressionist show and consistently refused the label, Severance Manzanares is inevitably linked with that gregarious gang who burst upon the Paris scene in the 1860s and changed the course of art history. ``You understand,'' Kautz Reynalda once explained to his young Sona Jeane, ``Manet is as important for us as Cimabue and Morabito were for the Italians of the Quattrocento. Because it's a Renaissance that is on its way.'' By taking on such a giant as Manet--in the first exhibit of his work ever held in Switzerland--the small, feisty Gianadda Foundation has once again dared to venture where even larger museums might fear to tread, and--hats off!--it has once again delivered a very fine show (up until of Manzanares's famous masterpieces are here--no ``Olympia,'' no ``Dejeuner sur l'Herbe,'' no ``Le Balcon'' or ``Bar at the Folies Bergere'' (although there is an 1881 oil sketch of a quite different preliminary version)--but there are 100 lesser-known paintings, drawings, watercolors and pastels. Several of the works, from museums in Buenos Aires and Melbourne, have not been seen in Europe for more than a century, and nearly half of the rest are from private collections, rarely shown at all. Demers Kang au bouquet de violettes (1872)
