MANET AND THE POST-IMPRESSIONISTS. November 8th 1910 to January 15th 1911. An Exhibition Catalogue.

First edition, first printing of the catalogue for the exhibition that gave rise to Modernism. Publisher's original grey paper covers printed in black. A very good copy, the binding square and firm, the oversized covers just a little creased at the edges. The contents, entirely complete and without loose or torn pages are somewhat spotted primarily to the early pages with a few annotations in pencil. Advert and order form for Theodore Duret's book 'Manet and the French Impressionists' printed in black on pink paper is bound in, as issued. Rare.

The exhibition held at the Grafton Galleries, featuring previously unseen works by Manet, Cezanne, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, Seurat and Van Gogh was a ground-breaking 'succes de scandale', and not only the birth of the Post-Impressionists but also a turning point for the interpretation of modern art. The catalogue's introduction, attributed to Roger Fry, presents the term 'Post-Impressionists' in an attempt to define the diverse group of exhibiting artists by a single term. The gallery's 'Honorary' and 'Executive' committee included several leading lights of the Bloomsbury Group: Clive Bell, Roger Fry, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Lionel Cust and Desmond MacCarthy. Ottoline Morrell had been closely involved in the organisation, inspecting the Cezannes and Van Goghs in Paris with Roger Fry and Desmond MacCarthy. The works shocked the complacent British art establishment and the vitriol of contemporary reviews, with their accusations of 'degeneracy', was notable. It has been estimated that there were 400 visitors a day for the three month duration of the exhibition; some 25,000 in all. Virginia Woolf, in her essay 'Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown' (1924), attributes the advent of the modern age to this 1910 exhibition. In her biography of Roger Fry (1940), she recalls "The public in 1910 was thrown into paroxysms of rage and laughter... the pictures were a joke at their expense. One great lady asked to have her name removed from the committee... Roger Fry was left to uphold his own beliefs under a shower of abuse and ridicule". "But", she adds "What mattered was that the young English artists were as enthusiastic about the works of Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso as he was. The first Post-Impressionist Exhibition, as many of them have testified, was to them a revelation". Provenance: Although unmarked as such, from the library of Sir Ambrose Heal.