Daumier

Honori-Victorin Daumier was a masterfully versatile artist, creating powerful works in lithography, pen and ink, sculpture, watercolor, and oil. This beautiful book explores the astonishing breadth of his achievement. Written by eminent figures in the artworld, the book illuminates Daumier's success as a political and social satirist, showing how he identified with the dispossessed, the poor, and the oppressed. The authors point out that lithography was Daumier's weapon in humorous attacks on patronage (Gargantua) and in stark exposures of injustice (Rue Transnonain), while his paintings and drawings recorded scenes of emigration (The Fugitives), and public transport (The Third-Class Carriage). Daumier's sculpture parodied political abuses (Ratapoil) and caricatured pompous and self-important public figures (The Celebrites series from La Caricature and Le Charivari), and his watercolours captured his disdain for lawyers and judges (The Speech for the Defence) and his empathy for the poor (The Soup). With lavish reproductions, each accompanied by apparatus, commentary, and provenance, the book is a vivid testimony of Daumier's ongoing legacy.
This book is the catalogue for an exhibition of Daumier's work on view at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, from 11 June to 6 September 1999, the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, from 5 October 1999 to 3 January 2000, and The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., from 19 February to 14 May 2000.