“The Modernity of Jean-François Millet”
 by Simon Kelly, Ph.D.,
Curator and Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art
Saint Louis Art Museum

Thursday, September 21, 2023
5:30 p.m. Lecture
6:30 – 7:30 p.m. Reception

This lecture will explore the life and work of Jean-François Millet, exploring his

This lecture will explore the life and work of Jean-François Millet, artistic innovation and his impact on later artists including Vincent van Gogh. It will provide fresh context for the pastel by Millet, First Steps, in the collection of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Dr. Simon Kelly, Curator and Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, has written extensively on nineteenth and early twentieth-century French art, with a particular focus on Barbizon and Impressionist landscape painting. He recently co-curated Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dali (2020), and his essays are included in numerous exhibition catalogues such as In the Forest of Fontainebleau: Painters and Photographers from Corot to Monet and Becoming Van Gogh. Kelly worked previously at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City. He received an undergraduate degree from the University of Cambridge and a doctorate from Oxford University, where he also taught art history.