Bouguereau And America

Traveling exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and San Diego Museum of Art, 2019-2020

Seeking to bring sophistication and worldly elegance into their galleries and drawing rooms, wealthy Americans of the late 19th and early 20th centuries collected the work of William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) in record numbers.
This exhibition catalogue offers an in-depth exploration of Bouguereau's overwhelming popularity in turn-of-the-century America and the ways that his work-widely known from reviews, exhibitions, and inexpensive reproductions-resonated with the American public.