Manet’s Cafe-Concert can be found outside the Red Lion on the sea side
Corner of a Café-Concert, 1878-80
Edouard Manet
Oil on canvas 97.1 × 77.5 cm
In August 1874 Manet began work on a large picture of the Brasserie de Reichshoffen, where he was fascinated by the skill of the waitresses. While working on the picture, he radically altered his plans and cut it in two, completing each half separately. This snapshot view of the cafe is the right side of the larger painting. The left half shows a man and two women sitting at the other side of the table. Titled Au Café, that painting is in the Reinhart Collection, Winterthur, Switzerland.
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Edouard Manet
Manet was the elder statesman of the Impressionists, although he never participated in their exhibitions but continued to compete in the Salons. His unconventional subject matter drawn from modern life, and his concern for the artist’s freedom in handling paint made him an important precursor of Impressionism.
Manet was a native Parisian and the son of wealthy parents. He trained with Thomas Couture. His work was founded on the opposition of light and shadow, a restricted palette in which black was very important, and on painting directly from the model. The work of the Spaniard Velázquez directly influenced his adoption of this style.
Read more at NationalGallery.org.uk