Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí

This exhibition occurred in the past. The archival summary below describes the exhibition as it was conceived while on view.

Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí is a groundbreaking exhibition that examines, for the first time, the international legacy of French painter Jean-François Millet (1814–1875). Millet was a pioneer in developing innovative imagery of rural peasantry, landscapes, and nudes, and his work had a deep impact on later generations of artists. In the late 19th century he was arguably the best-known modern painter, and his works sold for the highest prices of any modern pictures at auction. Today Millet is less well known, and this exhibition seeks to revive his importance and recognize his radicalism.

Millet and Modern Art creates an alternative and fresh narrative for the history of modern art that begins with his work. Millet’s imagery is situated within the context of work by a wide range of artists whom he influenced, including Vincent van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, Georges Seurat, Claude Monet, Giovanni Segantini, Winslow Homer, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Edvard Munch, and Salvador Dalí.

The exhibition is cocurated by Simon Kelly, curator and head of the department of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, and Maite van Dijk, senior curator at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

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