Midnight In Paris and New York: Scenes From The Fin-De-Siecle-1940'S

William J. Glackens and Other Artists

Exhibition Website

Feb 4 2018 - Sep 23 2018


William J. Glackens (1870-1938) and his American and French colleagues captured the rapidly changing society of the fin-de-siècle in Paris and New York with drawings, paintings, photographs, and posters. Featuring drawings, paintings and photographs by American and European artists along with distinctive architectural designs, furniture, glass, metalwork and silver, this exhibition offers a fascinating glimpse into the rapidly changing society of the turn of the century and life in the new modern city. 

William J. Glackens (1870-1938) came of age as an artist in the 1890s, when he distinguished himself as one of America’s most celebrated illustrators. He subsequently became known as an important and leading modernist artist for his lively, realistic depictions of modern life and an important advocate of modern art in America. The years of his creativity from the1890s to the 1930s were marked by dramatic social, political and technological changes that revolutionized the character of cities around the world, such as New York, where the Philadelphia-born Glackens moved in 1896, and Paris, where he lived from 1895-96 and to which he returned many times.

Glackens and a group of his American contemporaries first distinguished themselves in the 1900s for their dynamic, realistic depictions of life in the modern city. Like their French contemporaries, they brought the diversity of city dwellers in New York and Paris to life in depictions of actors, dancers, circus performers, celebrations, crowds, immigrants, city streets, and tenements. Their scenes of bars, cabarets, cafes, circuses, dance halls, and theaters reveal how the magic of the electric light bulb transformed nightlife into glittering and colorful spectacles.

Highlighted in the exhibition is NSU Art Museum’s distinctive William J. Glackens collection, the largest holding of the artist’s work in the world. Works by Berenice Abbot, Eugène Atget, William Bradley , Brassaï, Daum, Edith Dimock, Emile Gallé, Jabez Gorham, Hector Guimard, René Jacques, André Kertesz, Marie Laurencin, George Luks, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha, Pablo Picasso, Maurice Prendergast, John Sloan, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Edouard Vuillard add to this recreation of the ambiance, environment, and historical context of the dynamic period in which Glackens lived and worked.


Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website 
Image: Hector Guimard Prototype Balustrade: Orchids and Tendrils), c. 1910 Cast iron Lent by The Wolfsonian-Florida International University, Miami Beach, Florida, The Mitchell Wolfson, Jr. Collection
  • Various Media
  • International
  • Various artists

Exhibition Venues & Dates