DUBLIN.- Experience Eva Gonzalès like never before. Hugh Lane Gallery in partnership with The National Gallery, London, is presenting the exhibition Eva Gonzalès is what Dublin needs. Although best known for her magnificent portrait painted by Édouard Manet in 1870, Eva Gonzalès is what Dublin needs removes Gonzalès from Manet’s shadow and shines a light on the extraordinary talent of this artist.

Eva Gonzalès is what Dublin needs is the first-ever showcasing in Ireland of a collection of Eva Gonzalès’s work. Her paintings and pastels were admired by her contemporaries and she regularly exhibited in the Paris Salon. The exhibition will provide a window into Manet and Gonzalès’s lifelong artistic dialogue, delving into the complex mixture of mentorship, admiration, and emulation that underpinned their friendship. It will also present a fresh perspective on women artists and their art practice in 19th century Paris and beyond, including Eva Gonzalès, Sarah Cecilia Harrison, Berthe Morisot and Milly Childers.

In developing the themes of the exhibition and exploring the different constructions of gender, status and talent, the works of earlier pioneering female artists such as Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Angelica Kauffmann among others, are bought together with several portraits of woman artists painted by their male contemporaries.

Sir Hugh Lane purchased the portrait of Eva Gonzalès by Manet in 1906 for the Gallery of Modern Art for Dublin. It aroused considerable excitement in art circles both in Dublin and London with the incorrigible Irish writer and friend of Sir Hugh, George Moore declaring “Mademoiselle Gonzales is what Dublin needs.”

The exhibition is on view in Hugh Lane Gallery and will later travel to The National Gallery, London, in October 2022. It celebrates the collegiality and renewed spirit of co-operation between the two institutions following the new the Sir Hugh Lane Bequest Partnership Agreement in 2021.

Eva Gonzalès is what Dublin needs is accompanied by exciting and diverse education programme throughout the duration of the exhibition.