Talk $5 public; Free for DMA Members and students
Talk and Reception $30 public; $25 DMA Members and students
Discover what happens when the Impressionists turn their attention to food in an evening of art and cuisine presented by the Richard R. Brettell Lecture Series. After the talk, enjoy small bites inspired by works of art in the DMA’s European art collection.
Join art historian Dr. Marni Kessler for a talk about depictions of food culture in 19th-century French painting, from Édouard Manet's Brioche with Pears to sumptuous Impressionist still lifes. Although Manet depicted the buttery confection in other works throughout his career, the DMA’s Brioche with Pears of 1876 is rendered with a particularly alluring immediacy. Its glossed contours catch the light, and shadows carve its scalloped curves. Realized from creamy strokes of pigment that betray the tender give of its airy infrastructure, this pastry certainly conjures the sensorial delights elicited by its real counterpart. Kessler will show how Manet unsettles the very gastronomic pleasures he engenders, crafting a brioche that also resembles a dirt-crusted stone and a clump of earth pierced by a single rose. Set within a painting that blurs interior and exterior, Kessler reveals how Manet’s yeasty pastry engages in the culinary, terrestrial, and botanical realms.
Dr. Marni Kessler is Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Kress Foundation Department of Art History at the University of Kansas. She is the author of Discomfort Food: The Culinary Imagination in Late Nineteenth-Century French Art and Sheer Presence: The Veil in Manet’s Paris, as well as articles and book chapters on topics related to urbanism, fashion, food, family, and portraiture in late 19th-century French visual culture. Kessler has received fellowships from such institutions as the National Endowment for the Humanities, Getty Foundation, New York Academy of Medicine, and Schlesinger Library, and she was recently a New York Public Library Food Studies Fellow.
Reception*
8:00–9:00 p.m., Hamon Atrium
Enjoy beer, wine, and a selection of small bites inspired by works in the DMA's European art collection.
* An additional ticket is required to attend the reception
Menu:
Apple Chips with Candied Walnuts and Gorgonzola Cheese
Seared Pork Belly with Homemade Cinnamon Apple Butter and Fried Sage
Cherry and Thyme Bruschetta with Balsamic Goat Cheese and Spanish Peppers
Tea and Pistachio Petit Fours
This program is part of the Richard R. Brettell Lecture Series, endowed by Carolyn and Roger Horchow in honor of former DMA Director, and Founding Director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, Rick Brettell.
Image: Édouard Manet, Brioche with Pears, 1876. Oil on canvas. Dallas Museum of Art and The Arts, Ltd., 66.1985.1