Fashion & Faith Comes to the Legion of Honor

BY PAUL DUCLOS

James Tissot (1836–1902) was one of the most celebrated French artists during the 19th century, yet he is lesser known today than many of his contemporaries.

Presenting new scholarship on the artist’s oeuvre, technique and remarkable life, James Tissot: Fashion & Faith provides a critical reassessment of Tissot through a 21st-century lens. The exhibition, co-organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie, Paris, includes approximately 70 paintings in addition to drawings, prints, photographs and cloisonné enamels, demonstrating the breadth of the artist’s skills. The presentation at the Legion of Honor will be the first major international exhibition on Tissot in two decades and the first ever on the West Coast of the United States.

“The work of James Tissot provides a fascinating lens onto society at the dawn of the modern era. Long recognized as a keen observer of contemporary life and fashion, this exhibition brings new light to his narrative strengths and his skill in portraying the emotional and spiritual undercurrents that exist below surface appearances,” said Thomas P. Campbell, director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “Continuing the Fine Arts Museums’ tradition of contributing original scholarship around key works in our collection, we are thrilled to introduce the perspective of this enigmatic, prolific artist in the first exhibition of his work to take place on the West Coast.”

Arranged chrono-thematically, James Tissot: Fashion & Faith traces the extraordinary turns of the artist’s life, as he consistently defied traditional conventions, both professionally and personally.

A Frenchman who started out painting medievalized scenes from history and literature, Tissot maintained a complicated friendship with mentee Edgar Degas, went on to adopt an Anglicized version of his name, Jacques, and spent a decade as an expatriate in London, immersing himself in and chronicling modern society.

For a time, he ventured into a love affair with the young divorcée Kathleen Newton, who became his model and muse. After her tragic premature death, he returned to Paris and spent long periods of productive retreat at his family estate in the French countryside, nurturing a growing, deep commitment to religion.

The exhibition includes many key modern-life works, such as The Ball on Shipboard, which will surely speak to our ferry-riding readership. Another nautical number we enjoyed was On the Thames, featuring a lucky mariner with two fetching lasses.

Melissa Buron, exhibition curator and director of the art division at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, noted that the artist understood “the inner lives of women” despite never having any sisters or daughters.

“He obviously had a great passion for society women of complexity,” she said. “Although shopkeepers and housemaids were also prominently painted. He had a deep meaningful relationship with his mother and his mistress, which would have made a great modern-day movie.” 

The Washington Square Bar & Grill: Thanks for the Memories

We understand that new investors are planning on opening a restaurant and bar at the long-abandoned site of the legendary Washington Square Bar & Grill in North Beach.

As readers of Flags of Convenience may recall, this was the primary hangout and piano gig for the novel’s protagonist, Eugene Bryan. Inspired by the prospect of a resurrected WSB&G, we went to our basement library to fetch a decomposing copy of The Square: The Story of a Saloon by Ron Fimrite.

The book still fascinates, especially when the author describes “the amazing catholicity” of Ed Moose’s taste in cocktails:

“The boss might start his day with a revivifying glass of bitters and soda, then step up to a pre-luncheon champagne. He will polish off several glasses of cabernet sauvignon with lunch and then down a port afterward. If he is in an expansive humor, he might even have a postprandial pink gin or maybe some plain coffee with anisette. Then he’ll be off to the Press Club for a swim and a nap.”

We first became acquainted with Mr. Moose when the Press Club was still a vibrant newspaper haunt. Its decline was a sad affair, but vestiges of the old place still exist in the University Club of San Francisco’s “Black Cat Bar.”