I, GUSTAVE COURBET Painter and Rebel

Museum Folkwang

17 July – 8 November 2026

Museum Folkwang is dedicating a major retrospective – I, Gustave Courbet. Painter and Rebel – to one of the most influential artists of the 19th century. From 17 July to 8 November 2026, the Museum Folkwang will be exhibiting 100 works from all periods of the French artist’s career – including 85 paintings. The exhibition is complemented by drawings by the artist, as well as a carefully curated selection of historical photographs and contemporary documents.

The exhibition focuses on Gustave Courbet’s (1819–1877) significance as a pioneer of modern painting. Courbet was not only an artistic innovator, but also helped shape a new self-image of the artist as an independent, outspoken and public figure. He rejected the idealised aesthetics of his time and instead depicted the lives of ordinary people and social reality in his art.

Courbet viewed painting as a form of resistance: his approach to traditional pictorial genres and his painting technique, which often allows the material presence of the paint to shine through, make him one of the most important exponents of realism. Courbet grew to became a role model for subsequent generations of artists far beyond France’s borders.

The extensive exhibition in Essen features around 90 works, including major pieces such as Le Fou de peur (1844), L’Après-dînée à Ornans (1849), Jo, la belle Irlandaise (1866), L’Origine du Monde (1866) and L’Homme à la pipe (1849). Spanning some 900 square metres, the exhibition brings together loans from international museums and collections, including Musée d’Orsay in Paris, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin and Musée Fabre in Montpellier as well as from numerous private collections.  

The Retrospective     
For Museum Folkwang, the retrospective presents a unique opportunity: it ties in with the museum’s significant collection of French art. For example, Cézanne’s The Bibémus Quarry from the Folkwang Collection in Essen will be shown alongside works by Courbet. This allows visitors in Essen to experience first-hand Courbet’s influence on the development of modern painting.

The exhibition’s nine sections are devoted to the key stages of the artist’s life and the central themes of his work. It explores key motifs in Courbet’s extensive oeuvre: self-image and landscape, social reality, the public sphere, nude depictions as well as politics and exile.

The exhibition opens with Courbet’s striking self-portraits, which trace his development from a young, as yet largely unknown artist to a central figure in the French art world. He portrays himself as a rebel, a dreamer or a loner, thereby consciously shaping his public image as an artist. Major works such as Le Fou de peur reveal just how closely his self-image and artistic programme were intertwined from the very beginning.

Another focus is on the landscapes of his home region, Franche-Comté, around his birthplace, Ornans. Courbet saw direct observation of nature as a means of depicting reality and of approaching an unadulterated truth through his painting. The landscapes, rock formations, caves and waterfalls became the starting point for his new conception of nature. With his material-focused, impasto style of painting, Courbet developed a visual language that paved the way for modernism.

Equally influential are Courbet’s depictions of social reality. Works such as L’Après-dînée à Ornans mark his radical break with academic ideals: instead of historical or mythological subjects, the focus shifts to everyday people and social reality.

Courbet’s conflict-ridden relationship with the Academy and the Salon, as well as his deliberate assertion of his independence as an artist, are the focus of the following sections of the exhibition. Hunting scenes and seascapes reveal his fascination with nature in all its forms: from dramatic depictions of animals to the powerful wave scenes of the French coastline.

A separate gallery is devoted to portraits and nudes of women. Courbet broke away from the ideals of academic beauty and depicted women with a directness that was unprecedented at the time.

Rather than idealised beauty, the focus is on real physicality, the materiality of the painting style and the immediacy of the figures. At the same time, he draws on traditional pictorial conventions and develops them further – for example in Jo, la belle Irlandaise or L’Origine du Monde, in which Courbet radicalises the directness of the nude and focuses exclusively on the female genitalia.

A separate chapter explores Courbet’s engagement with the then-fledgling art of photography: historical photographs by leading French photographers such as Gustave Le Gray and Henri Le Secq, drawn from the Museum Folkwang’s internationally renowned photographic collection, are juxtaposed with Courbet’s landscapes, seascapes and still lifes. These comparisons open up new perspectives on Courbet’s artistic vision and reveal the close links between painting and the medium of photography.

The exhibition then explores Courbet’s political activism during the Paris Commune and his conviction. It concludes with works from his exile in Switzerland. These works speak of the loss of his homeland and the melancholy of his final years, yet at the same time of the unbroken creative energy of an artist whose influence extends well into the modern era.

“The exhibition presents Courbet as a driven figure who took on various roles, studied the history of painting, revitalised art and strove for success – not by conforming, but as a rebel and revolutionary – in art as in life. The fact that so many exceptional international loans from museums and private collections are coming to Essen is a great success and the result of close collaboration with the Leopold Museum in Vienna and numerous lenders,” says Peter Gorschlüter, Director of the Museum Folkwang.

IMAGES

 01 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Sister Juliette, c. 1840 Oil on canvas | 22 × 27 cm Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal Photo: Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal/Medienzentrum Wuppertal 

02 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Self-Portrait or Man with a Dog, 1842 Oil on canvas | 27.5 × 22 cm Collection Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Pontarlier – France Photo: 28 A 88 – Collection Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Pontarlier – France 

03 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Portrait of Paul Ansout, 1844 Oil on canvas | 61 × 65.2 cm Musée de Dieppe Photo: C2RMF/Thomas Clot 

04 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Man Mad with Fear, c. 1844 Oil on canvas | 60.5 × 50 cm The National Museum of Norway Photo: Nasjonalmuseet/Børre Høstland 

05 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Sculptor, also called The Poet, 1845 Oil on canvas | 55.9 × 41.9 cm Private collection Photo: 2024 Christie’s Images Limited 

06 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Man with the Leather Belt. Portrait of the Artist, 1845/46 Oil on canvas | 105 × 81.2 cm Paris, musée d’Orsay Photo: GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski 

07 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Young Man Sitting, Study. Self-Portrait at the Easel, 1847 Charcoal on paper | 45 × 34 cm Paris, musée d’Orsay, conservé au cabinet des arts graphiques du musée du Louvre Photo: GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay)/Thierry Le Mage 

08 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 After Dinner at Ornans, 1849 Oil on canvas | 195 × 257 cm Lille, Palais des Beaux-Arts Photo: GrandPalaisRmn (PBA, Lille)/Philipp Bernard 

09 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 L’Homme à la pipe | Der Mann mit der Pfeife, um 1849 Öl auf Leinwand | 45,8 × 37,8 cm Musée Fabre, Montpellier Foto: Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole/Frédéric Jaulmes

09 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Man with a Pipe, c. 1849 Oil on canvas | 45.8 × 37.8 cm Musée Fabre, Montpellier Photo: Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole/Frédéric Jaulmes 

10 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Stone Breakers, c. 1849 Oil on canvas | 75.1 × 84 cm The Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz,” Winterthur Photo: The Swiss Confederation, Federal Office of Culture, Oskar Reinhart Collection “Am Römerholz,” Winterthur 

11 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Meeting or Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, 1854 Oil on canvas | 132.4 × 151 cm Musée Fabre, Montpellier Photo: Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole/Frédéric Jaulmes 

12 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Stag at the Water or The Cornered Stag, 1861 Oil on canvas | 220 × 275 cm Marseille, musée des Beaux-Arts Photo: Ville de Marseille, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn/Jean Bernard 

13 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Nude Woman with a Dog, 1861/62 Oil on canvas | 65.5 × 81 cm Paris, musée d’Orsay Photo: GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski 

14 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Source of the Lison, c. 1864 Oil on canvas | 66.5 × 80.5 cm Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie Photo: bpk/Nationalgalerie, SMB/Andres Kilger 

15 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Manbouc Valley, 1865/66 Oil on canvas | 54.5 × 73 cm Leopold Museum, Vienna Photo: Leopold Museum, Vienna 

16 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Calm, Seascape, 1865–1867 Oil on canvas | 45 × 54.5 cm Ville de Lons-le-Saunier, musée des Beaux-Arts, France Photo: Collection Musée de Lon-le-Saunier/Jean-Loup Mathieu 

17 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Origin of the World, 1866 Oil on canvas | 46.3 × 55.4 cm Paris, musée d’Orsay Photo: GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski 

18 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Sleepers, 1866 Oil on canvas | 135 × 200 cm Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris Photo: Paris Musées/Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris 

19 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Wounded Man, 1866 Oil on canvas | 79.5 × 99.5 cm Belvedere, Vienna Photo: Belvedere, Vienna 

21 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Coastal Landscape, 1866 Oil on canvas | 46.2 × 55.6 cm Leopold Museum, Vienna Photo: Leopold Museum, Vienna 

22 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Waterspout, 1867 Oil on canvas | 65.4 × 81.2 cm Collection M. Urbain, Paris Photo: Collection M. Urbain, Paris 

23 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Portrait of the Poet Pierre Dupont, 1868 Oil on canvas | 54.5 × 40.5 cm Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe Photo: Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe 

24 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Sculptor Marcello (Duchess of Castiglione-Colonna), 1870 Oil on canvas | 60.2 × 49.3 cm Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims Photo: Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims/Christian Devleeschauwer 

25 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 The Wave, 1870 Oil on canvas | 45 × 59 cm Museum Folkwang, Essen Photo: Museum Folkwang, Essen 

26 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Self-Portrait in Sainte-Pélagie, 1872 Oil on canvas | 92.5 × 73.4 cm Musée départemental Gustave Courbet, Ornans Photo: Musée départemental Gustave Courbet/Pierre Guenat 

27 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Trout, 1872 Oil on canvas | 52.5 × 87 cm Kunsthaus Zürich, 1936 Photo: Kunsthaus Zürich 

28 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Chillon Castle, 1874 Oil on canvas | 64.8 × 80.7 cm Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Belfort Photo: Musées de Belfort/Philippe Martin 

29 | GUSTAVE COURBET 1819–1877 Panorama of the Alps, c. 1876 Oil on canvas | 63.2 × 140 cm MAH Musée d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève Photo: Musée d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève/Bettina Jacot-Descombes 

Bruegel. Printed

 Städel Museum

June 18 to September 20, 2026

Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1526/30–1569) is one of the most outstanding artists of 16th-century Dutch art. His works transport viewers into a fascinating world of humorous imagery and enigmatic motifs. Known primarily as a painter today, he made a name for himself early on as a designer of prints. 

The Städel Museum's exhibition "Bruegel. Printed" brings together around 45 exceptional prints based on Bruegel's drawings. They reveal him as a unique inventor and distinctive storyteller: his subjects range from expansive landscapes to secular and religious symbols and scenes of everyday life. 

Bruegel's works were created in close collaboration with the Antwerp publisher Hieronymus Cock and his wife Volcxken Diericx. They convey a vivid impression of the artist's unique visual world, which unites observation and imagination. Drawing on his predilection for the intricate, grotesque motifs of Hieronymus Bosch and his broad knowledge of pictorial and motif traditions, he developed new forms of representation for traditional themes. His compositions, often employing exaggeration, elicit laughter from the audience while simultaneously prompting reflection. Bruegel addresses human weaknesses and injustices, alludes to the grandeur of nature, and focuses on everyday interactions. To this day, his works offer surprisingly relevant perspectives on fundamental questions of human values.

The Städel Museum's presentation begins with Bruegel's prints from its own collection, of which approximately 30 are on display. This selection is complemented by loans from the Albertina in Vienna and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München (State Graphic Collection Munich). 

In addition, the exhibition features two paintings by his son, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, as well as further prints from the Städel Museum's impressive collection of Dutch prints, including works after Frans Floris, Lambert Lombard, and Raphael.

The exhibition is made possible by the support of the Städel Museum Association.

Philipp Demandt , Director of the Städel Museum, on the exhibition: “With our exhibition on Bruegel’s prints, the Städel once again opens its doors to the extraordinary treasures of its Graphic Collection, which, with around 100,000 drawings and prints from the late Middle Ages to the present day, is one of the most important collections of its kind in Germany. Visitors are invited to embark on an impressive journey of discovery through Bruegel’s multifaceted visual worlds, full of narrative power, subtle observations, and surprising details.”

Astrid Reuter , head of the graphic arts collection up to 1800 at the Städel Museum: “Bruegel’s pictorial inventions were already extremely popular during his lifetime. They not only served as entertainment but also formed the subject of scholarly discussions. The special appeal of his works arises from the interplay of naturalism, inventiveness, and humorous exaggeration. Appreciated as imaginative inventions and critical reflections on human values ​​and behaviors, they continue to invite discovery, reflection, and even laughter.”

Curator: Dr. Astrid Reuter (Head of the Graphic Collection up to 1800, Städel Museum)

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Pieter van der Heyden, The Big Fish Eat the Little Fish, 1570

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, etched and engraved by Jan and Lucas van Doetecum, Saint Jerome in the Wilderness, c. 1555–56

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Pieter van der Heyden, Patience (Patientia), 1557

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Philipp Galle, Temperance (Temperantia), ca. 1560

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Pieter van der Heyden, Everyman (Elck), ca. 1558

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, engraved by Pieter van der Heyden, Sloth (Desidia), 1558

Pieter Brueghel the Younger after Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Dance at the Peasant Wedding, c. 1625

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Engraved by Philipp Galle, Prudence (Prudentia)

Book: Vermeer’s Afterlives

 

How a once-forgotten Dutch painter inspired generations of artists, writers, and filmmakers

• 
  

Hardcover

Price:

$39.95/£35.00

ISBN: 9780691277820

Published:

Jun 23, 2026

Copyright:

2026

Pages:

320

Size:

7 x 10 in.

Illus:

146 color illus.

Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) is one of the most beloved painters in the world. But when an enterprising French journalist and art critic set out to recover his work in the mid-nineteenth century, both his name and achievement were virtually forgotten. Vermeer’s Afterlives tells the remarkable story of how one of the great masters of the Dutch Golden Age was lost to obscurity until the rise of art history as a new discipline introduced his work to modern audiences and asks why his art compels so many other artists to respond with works of their own.

Ruth Bernard Yeazell traces the cultural ascendency of this extraordinary painter, whose enigmatic subjects and quiet, introspective interiors, transfigured by light and color, continue to captivate viewers far removed from his native Delft. We meet the critics who first welcomed Vermeer into the canon along with the painters who sought to imitate him, the forgers who tried to pass off their work as his own, and the contemporary artists who openly repurpose it. The enquiry concludes by looking at Vermeer’s paintings through the eyes of the poets and novelists who have attempted to translate his silence into words and give voice to the stories he left untold. Along the way, Yeazell interrogates the changing assumptions that govern art history, while demonstrating how paintings live on not only in later paintings but in poetry, fiction, photography, and film.

Marking the 350th anniversary of Vermeer’s death, this beautifully illustrated book explores the variety of ways in which Vermeer’s art has been interpreted through the centuries and shows how his paintings take on afterlives of their own in the imaginations of those who view them.

AUTHOR

Ruth Bernard Yeazell is Sterling Professor of English at Yale University. Her books include Picture Titles: How and Why Western Paintings Acquired Their Names and Art of the Everyday: Dutch Painting and the Realist Novel (both Princeton). Her work has appeared in leading publications such as the London Review of Books and The New York Review of Books.

PRAISE

"Beautifully illustrated. . . . [Vermeer’s Afterlives is] an authoritative, insightful work of art history."—Kirkus Reviews starred review

"[Ruth Bernard Yeazell] marshals rigorous analysis to show how the artists, filmmakers, writers, and critics who carried forward Vermeer’s “afterlives” have expanded, innovated, and sometimes transformed the meaning of his work. Serious admirers of the painter will want this on their bookshelves."—Publishers Weekly

"Beautifully illustrated. . . . [Vermeer’s Afterlives’s] clarity, fluidity, and accessibility are impressive. Particularly noteworthy is Yeazell’s considerable skill in interweaving Vermeer’s oeuvre with paintings by other artists, films, poetry, fiction, photography, and scientific work."—Amy Ione, Leonardo Reviews

"[Vermeer’s Afterlives] deepen[s] our understanding of this singular figure, whose scant oeuvre of some three dozen pictures has bequeathed a continually radiating light."—Kelly Presutti, Art in America

“Ruth Bernard Yeazell provides a revelatory new account of a fascinating and multifaceted subject: the reception of the seventeenth-century Dutch painter Vermeer from the period of his putative ‘rediscovery’ in the 1860s through to the present day. The book covers not only the nuances of scholarship on Vermeer, but also the responses of artists, filmmakers, poets, and novelists. Yeazell’s deft and imaginative treatment makes these varied responses come alive and shows why Vermeer’s art has proved so compelling to modern audiences.”—Elizabeth Prettejohn, author of Modern Painters, Old Masters: The Art of Imitation from the Pre-Raphaelites to the First World War

“The story of the rediscovery of Johannes Vermeer in the mid-nineteenth century, and the subsequent fascination with his art until the present day, is at the core of Ruth Bernard Yeazell’s engaging and important book. Yeazell explores the various ways Vermeer’s paintings, which seem so perfect in their colors, compositions, and subject matter and yet reach deep into the emotional core of human life, inspired the imagination of artists, novelists, poets, and filmmakers. Yeazell’s book is a compelling in-depth study of Vermeer’s long-lasting impact on popular culture and the various ways in which artists and writers appropriated his imagery in their own creative works.”—Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., author of Vermeer: The Complete Works

A LOOK INSIDE