Exit from the Theater
Framed: 21 5/8 x 25 1/16 inches (54.94 x 63.65 cm)
Possibly Exposition Daumier et Gavarni, Maison de Victor-Hugo, Paris, May-July 1923.
One Hundred Years of French Painting, 1820-1920, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, March 31-April 28, 1935, no. 15, as Exit from the Theater.
Forty-Seventh Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Nebraska Art Association, Lincoln, NE, February 28-March 28, 1937, no. 42, as Exit from a Theater.
Old Master of the Month, Mulvane Art Center, Washburn University, Topeka, KS, April 6-26, 1949, no cat.
Fine Arts Festival, Allyn Art Gallery, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, February 26-March 10, 1956, no. 6, as Exit from the Theater.
This painting represents the left portion of a print of theatergoers exiting the performance of a tragedy on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, confirmed by the captions in the print below. Their somber faces register their collective mood. Honoré Daumier published the print the same year a government-sanctioned, citywide renovation campaign razed the nearby theaters as well as homes, displacing people experiencing poverty.
This urban planning envisioned by French official Baron Haussmann remade Paris with wide boulevards and public parks. In opposition to the renovations but facing heightened censorship laws, Daumier may have used this subject matter as a form of social commentary.
Forgeries of oil paintings based on Daumier’s prints are an acknowledged problem among Daumier scholars, and this painting has been off view for more than twenty years due to questions about its authenticity. However, recent historical research and an extensive technical study by conservators and scientists who examined the materials and techniques of this painting for the museum’s new collection catalogue, French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945, make a stronger case for Daumier as the artist.
[Paul?] Junger[s?] (d. ca. 1934), Paris, possibly by May 1923-no later than December 11, 1931 [1];
With Richard Owen, Paris, by December 1931-April 1, 1932 [2];
Purchased from Owen, through Harold Woodbury Parsons, by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932 [3].
[1] The spelling of this constituent's name varies, but is most often found as Jungers. See K. E. Maison, Honoré Daumier Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings, Watercolours and Drawings (London: Thames and Hudson, 1968), no. I-7, I-172, and I-194. For the possible first name Paul, see deaccession proposal for Felix Zeim, Still Life with Fish, 32-178, NAMA registrar files. In December 1931, Paris-based art dealer and specialist in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings, Richard Owen (1873-1946), was looking for buyers for four Daumier pictures he had recently purchased from a “well-known French collector [Jungers]”. See correspondence from Harold Woodbury Parsons, NAMA art agent, to J. C. Nichols, NAMA trustee, December 11, 1931, NAMA curatorial files. Through the assistance of Owen, NAMA acquired the Daumier and several other works from this collector. See Harold Woodbury Parsons to William Mathewson Milliken, former director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, June 10, 1932, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.
[2] Jungers may have owned the painting as early as May 1923 when it may have been exhibited at Exposition Daumier et Gavarni, Maison de Victor-Hugo, Paris, May-July 1923.
[3] The painting was placed on view at the Kansas City Art Institute from March 14, 1932 until after May 20, 1932, since the museum was not yet built. See “Objects owned by the W.R. Nelson Trust on exhibit at the K.C. Art Institute as of March 14, 1932,” March 14, 1932, NAMA Archives, William Rockhill Nelson Trust Office Records 1926-33, RG 80/05, Series I, box 02, folder 17, Exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute, 1932 and remained in the Art institute after May 20, 1932. See also, “Pictures remaining in the Art Institute after May 20, 1932,” May 20, 1932, NAMA Archives, William Rockhill Nelson Trust Office Records 1926-33, RG 80/05, Series I, box 02, folder 17, Exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute, 1932.
Possibly Exposition Daumier et Gavarni, exh, cat. (Paris: Maison de Victor-Hugo, 1923).
M[inna] K. P[owell], “A New Nelson Group: Paintings and Drawings are Added to Gallery,” Kansas City Star 52, no. 206 (April 10, 1932): 11A, as Theater Exit.
M[inna] K. P[owell], “Art: Mr. Parsons Will Be Heard Thursday Night on ‘The Italian Renaissance;’ What Is to Be Seen in the Group of Recently Acquired Paintings for the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art Was Told the Hospitality Committee Yesterday by Him,” Kansas City Times 95, no. 88 (April 12, 1932): 10, as Theater Exit.
M[inna] K. P[owell], “Daumier, Greatest of All the French Artists, Unsung in his Own Country,” Kansas City Star 53, no. 233 (May 8, 1933): C[14].
M[inna] K. P[owell], “The Gallery and Studio,” Kansas City Star 53, no. 308 (July 22, 1933): 5.
M[inna] K. P[owell], “Art Shows the Layman Something He is Unable to See for Himself,” Kansas City Star 54, no. 49 (November 5, 1933): 8D, (repro.).
“Nelson Gallery of Art Special Number,” Art Digest 8, no. 5 (December 1, 1933): 13-14, 21, 25 (repro.), as Exit from the Theatre.
Alfred M. Frankfurter, “Paintings in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art,” Art News 32, no. 10 (December 9, 1933): 29-30, 43, (repro.), as Sortie du Theatre.
Minna K. Powell, “The First Exhibition of the Great Art Treasures: Paintings and Sculpture, Tapestries and Panels, Period Rooms and Beautiful Galleries Are Revealed in the Collections Now Housed in the Nelson-Atkins Museum,” Kansas City Star 54, no. 84 (December 10, 1933): 4C, as Leaving the Theater.
“$15,000,000 Nelson Art Gallery Opens: Gift of Kansas City Star Publisher,” Boston Evening Transcript 104, no. 288 (December 11, 1933): 11.
“Art Critics View Nelson Gallery: Preview of Edifice, Costing $15,000,000 With Contents, Held at Kansas City,” New York Times 80, no. 27,715 (December 11, 1933): 24.
“Nelson Gallery of Art Opened at Kansas City: $14,000,000 Gift of ‘Star’ Publisher and His Heirs Already Fully Furnished; Has Many Innovations; Oriental, Roman, Colonial Objects World Famous,”New York Herald Tribune 93, no. 31,802 (December 11, 1933): 12, as Sortie du Theater.
Nan Sheets, “Programs, Plays, Pageants Planned by The Nelson Gallery of Art,” Daily Oklahoman 41, no. 341 (December 15, 1933): 15.
“Nelson Gallery of Art Opens,” New York City Editor and Publisher 66, no. 31 (December 16, 1933): 10.
M[inna] K. P[owell], “The Gallery and Studio,” Kansas City Star 54, no. 90 (December 16, 1933): 12.
Luigi Avian, “Art Dream Becomes Reality with Official Gallery Opening at Hand: Critic Views Wide Collection of Beauty as Public Prepares to Pay its First Visit to Museum,” Kansas City Journal-Post 80, no. 193 (December 17, 1933): 7, as Sortie de Theatre.
“Praises the Gallery: Dr. Nelson M’Cleary, Noted Artist, a Visitor,”Kansas City Star 54, no. 98 (December 24, 1933): 9A, as Exit from a Theater.
Thomas Carr Howe, “Kansas City Has Fine Art Museum: Nelson Gallery Ranks with the Best,” [unknown newspaper] (ca. December 1933), clipping, scrapbook, NAMA Archives, vol. 5, p. 6, as Sortie du Theater.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Handbook of the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1933), 41, 52, 136, (repro.), as Exit from a Theater.
A. J. Philpott, “Kansas City Now in Art Center Class: Nelson Gallery, Just Opened, Contains Remarkable Collection of Paintings, Both Foreign and American,” Boston Sunday Globe 125, no. 14 (January 14, 1934): 16.
“Pupils Act Story of Art: Growth of The Nelson Gallery Dramatized at Ashland School,” Kansas City Times 97, no. 58 (March 8, 1934): 20, Exit From the Theater.
“A Thrill to Art Expert: M. Jamot is Generous in his Praise of Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Times 97, no. 247 (October 15, 1934): 7.
Ellen Josephine Green, “The Fine Arts,” Musical Bulletin 23, no. 2 (November 1934): 8, as Sortie du Theatre.
One Hundred Years French Painting, 1820-1920 , exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1935), unpaginated, (repro.), as Exit from the Theater.
P[aul] V. B[eckley], “Art News,” Kansas City Journal-Post 81, no. 197 (April 7, 1935): 8-B.
“Wilmington Sees Old Masters’ Art,” New York Times 84, no. 28,202 (April 12, 1935): 21.
Harold Callender, “A Reply to Critics Of the Midwest Mind,” New York Times 83, no. 28, 876 (February 14, 1937): 5.
Forty-Seventh Annual Exhibition of Paintings , exh. cat. (Lincoln, NE: Nebraska Art Association, 1937), unpaginated, (repro.), as Exit from a Theater.
“Annual Nebraska Art Association Exhibit Officially Opens February 28,” Lincoln Sun Journal and Star (February 21, 1937), clipping, scrapbooks, NAMA Archives, vol. 7, pp. 64-66.
“A Great Newspaper Builds a Great Art Museum,” Life 7, no. 15 (October 9, 1939): 56, (repro.), as Exit from the Theater.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), 168, as Exit from the Theatre.
Dorothy Adlow, “Art in Kansas City—Music and Theaters—Exhibitions in San Francisco: Masterpieces of Many Schools To Be Seen in Nelson Gallery,”Christian Science Monitor 40, no. 197 (July 17, 1948): 12, as Exit of Theater.
“New Mulvane Exhibit Opens Wednesday,” Washburn Review (April 1, 1949): 6, as Exit from the Theater.
“12 Dutch Masters Sent Here by Metropolitan Make Up One of the New Mulvane Museum Exhibits,” Topeka State Journal (April 4, 1949): unpaginated, as Exit from the Theater.
Winifred Shields, “Daumier’s Paint Brush Could Assume the Shape of a Rapier: Eloquent in its Criticism is ‘Exit from the Theater,’ which is in Nelson Gallery,” Kansas City Star 74, no. 351 (September 3, 1954): 12, as Exit from the Theater.
Fine Arts Festival , exh. cat. ([Carbondale: Southern Illinois University, 1956]), unpaginated, (repro.), as Exit from the Theatre.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts , 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 260, as Exit from the Theater.
John H. Bens, Some Shapers of Men (New York: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), (repro.).
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri , vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 258, as Exit from the Theater.
John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America: Over 3000 Masterpeices by 50 Great Artists (New York: Abbeville Press, 1979), 88, as Exit from the Theater.
Louisa M. Smieska, John Twilley, Arthur R. Woll, Mary Schafer, and Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Energy-optimized synchrotron XRF mapping of an obscured painting beneath Exit from the Theater, attributed to Honoré Daumier,” Microchemical Journal 146 (2019): 679–91, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.microc.2019.01.058.
Mary Schafer, John Twilley, Louisa Smieska, Arthur Woll, and Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Technical Study of a Painting Attributed to Honoré Daumier at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art” AIC Paintings Specialty Group: Postprints; Papers Presented at the 47th Annual Meeting, New England (Washington, DC: American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, 2021), 101–24.
Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, “Attributed to Honoré Daumier, Exit from the Theater, after 1863,” catalogue entry, and Mary Schafer and John Twilley, “Attributed to Honoré Daumier, Exit from the Theater, after 1863,” technical entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, ed., French Paintings, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2021), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.512.5407.
