The exhibition Gustave Courbet at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen (Switzerland) presents pioneering works from all phases of the French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. At the heart of the show are Gustave Courbet’s female nudes beside water and his famous painting The Origin of the World (L’Origine du monde, 1866), a work that still provokes today. The exhibition presents works from all phases of Gustave Courbet’s career, including a number of paintings that have rarely been seen in public. On display are self-portraits, scenes capturing Courbet’s native countryside (pictures of secluded streams and springs, rock formations and grottoes), views of the sea, and winters capes. This video provides you with an exhibition walk-through on the occasion of the Vernissage of the show.

The exhibition was created by Ulf Küster, curator at the Fondation Beyeler, and is part of the “Courbet Season”, a joint venture with the Musées d’art et d’histoire in Geneva, which is mounting a concurrent show in the Musée Rath that focuses upon Courbet’s years in Switzerland.

Gustave Courbet at Fondation Beyeler, Riehen (Switzerland). Vernissage, September 6, 2014.

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Photo set on Flickr: