Rosa Bonheur was born 200 years ago in Bordeaux, and the Musée d’Orsay – very close to our hotels – is marking the occasion with a large-scale exhibition of her work, showing just how innovative, unusual and inspiring the artist was.

P.S. There’s also a second Rosa Bonheur exhibition on that you might like to catch…

Of a size and scope rarely seen either in France or anywhere else in the world, the new Rosa Bonheur exhibition is a bona fide event, bringing together over 200 of the painter’s works – not only standard-size paintings, but also many of her large-format (and even panoramic) paintings, plus some little-known works like her paintings on pebbles!

One recently discovered piece is 4½ metres long, and is being shown for the first time ever.

You’ll see the artist’s evident love of nature and animals (she had a small menagerie at her home with dogs, deer, big cats…) and learn more about her life (with some details that are rarely touched upon), her critical and commercial success, her travels, her insatiable curiosity…

Related to the exhibition, you may be interested in:

— guided visits for families,

— numerous workshops for kids,

— an inaugural conference at midday on 21st October with the curators of the exhibition,

— a talk (in French) with artist Françoise Pétrovitch on 1st December at 7pm, entitled “Under the paws of the animals“,

— a conference (in French) “Cow, horses and lions – Being an artist, a woman, and living with animals in the 19th century” on 10th January at the museum, and 11th January at the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature…

A catalogue of the exhibition has also just been published – 288 pages, 250 illustrations, 45€ here at your local amazon.

You can check out a PDF excerpt taken from the catalogue here or at the bottom of this article.

However, perhaps you’re a mega-fan and 200 paintings isn’t enough to quench your artistic thirst? Well, the good news is that until 23rd January 2023 the Château de Fontainebleau (here, a 40-minute train ride from Gare de Lyon) has another exhibition about the artist – Capture the Soul. Rosa Bonheur and Animal Art – with another 50 works to see.

A catalogue exists for this exhibition too (132 pages, 100 illustrations), available here from your local amazon.

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The Rosa Bonheur exhibition is at the Musée d’Orsay (here) from 18th October 2022 – 15th January 2023

Open every day except Mondays from 9.30am-6pm (9.45pm Thursdays)

Admission: 16€ / 13€

Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / #RosaBonheur

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“Toute une vie”: Rosa Bonheur

À quelques jours de l’ouverture de l’expo #RosaBonheur, @franceculture rediffuse à 15h le portrait radiophonique de la peintre “à la fois excentrique et conventionnelle, déroutante et paradoxale, en un mot : libre”.https://t.co/FVDZU2xUK3

— Musée d’Orsay (@MuseeOrsay) October 15, 2022