Eva Gonzalès at the Petit Palais: a free career revisited
The Petit Palais is devoting an exhibition to Eva Gonzalès, an artist less widely known than Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. The available summary points to an independent career shaped by her time with Édouard Manet.
The exhibition “Eva Gonzalès. Parcours d’une artiste libre” opens at the Petit Palais on 21 September 2026. It brings attention back to a painter whose place in art history has often remained in the shadow of better-known peers.
The fact that Eva Gonzalès was both a model and a student of Édouard Manet helps frame her path: she worked close to a central figure of modern painting, yet was not defined by that connection. The article instead emphasizes an independent career devoted entirely to her art.
For artists and for readers interested in painting and drawing, the value of such an exhibition lies in what it reveals about practice itself: learning from a master, then establishing one’s own voice. Looking at Gonzalès in this way means thinking about training, discipline, and the making of a modern artistic identity.
Source : Le Monde – Arts