Foreword in the book:
Edouard Manet first exhibited his Chemin de fer in 1874, at the Paris Salon, where it met with derisive criticism. It was eventually acquired, just one hundred years ago, in 1898, by Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, and remained in their family until it was given to the National Gallery of Art in 1956 by their son Horace Havemeyer, in memory of his mother Louisine W. Havemeyer. The Railway, or Gare Saint-Lazare, has become one of the National Gallery's best loved and yet most enigmatic works. The subject of numerous studies on Manet and impressionism, and the focus of a ground-breaking exhibition Manet and Modern Paris, organized by the Gallery in 1982, it continues to intrigue scholars and art lovers worldwide.
At the initiative of Philip Conisbee, curator of French paintings at the Gallery, and with the aid of Florence E. Coman, assistant curator, Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare presents Manet's masterpiece in a new light, cast on this occasion by our guest curator and the catalogue's author, the eminent Manet scholar Juliet Wilson-Bareau. Ms. Wilson- Bareau's re-reading of the picture leads us on a fascinating tour through the “Europe” district of Paris, newly developed around the Saint-Lazare train station-the site of The Railway, and the neighborhood in which Manet lived and worked during the 1870s. Here he was joined by fellow artists such as Claude Monet, who captured the energy and excitement of the train station itself in a series of dazzling canvases executed down on the tracks, and Gustave Caillebotte, who painted dramatic perspectives in the nearby streets. These and other impressionist painters celebrated life in the modern city-symbolized by their particular corner of Paris-in the years of hope immediately following the degradations of the Franco-Prussian War and the divisive Paris Commune. The exhibition also explores the development of Manet's work through the 1870s in his studio on the Rue de Saint-Pétersbourg-prominently visible in the background of The Railway-and theinfluence of his new friendship with the poet Stéphane Mallarmé, who was also a neighbor.