Image: Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha
Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha will open ‘Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855–1914’ on September 26, 2026, bringing together paintings, drawings and prints that examine the development of the French café and its influence on modern art. The exhibition will remain on view through January 17, 2027, in the museum’s Scott Pavilion galleries S1–3.
The exhibition considers the range of social and cultural forces behind the rise of café culture in Paris during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It also examines the different forms that café life took, from bistros and brasseries to cafés-concerts, dance halls and cabarets. Within that setting, the café is presented as a place for artistic dialogue, expression and experimentation.
Works by Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, James Tissot and Edgar Degas are among those included. The selection reflects the importance of café culture as a subject for both French artists and artists working in France from abroad, linking everyday social spaces with changing approaches to modern life and representation.
The exhibition’s featured works include Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Restaurant Rispal at Asnières’ (1887), an oil painting from the collection of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. The museum’s presentation also identifies James Tissot’s ‘The Artists’ Wives’ (1885), an oil painting from the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, and Jean Béraud’s ‘The Bal Mabille near the Champs-Elysées’ (c. 1870–75), an oil on panel from a private collection.
‘Café Society’ is organized jointly by Ordrupgaard in Copenhagen, Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, and Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha. An exhibition catalogue accompanies the presentation. At Joslyn, the show forms part of a schedule that also includes a presentation of work by Sadie Barnette, listed by the museum as on view in the Riley CAP Gallery through January 3, 2027; that exhibition is separate from ‘Café Society’ and explores the intersection of personal narratives and collective histories across drawing, sculpture, photography and installation.
Joslyn members will receive an advance look at the exhibition during a preview on Friday, September 25, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The program will include a 6 p.m. introduction by Taylor J. Acosta, the museum’s chief curator and director of collections, and Julie Pierotti, Martha R. Robinson Curator at Dixon Gallery and Gardens, identified as co-organizers of the exhibition. ‘Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855–1914’ will be presented at Joslyn Art Museum, 2200 Dodge Street, Omaha, from September 26, 2026, to January 17, 2027.
