b'on viewBECOMING A WOMAN IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT: FRENCH ART FROM THE HORVITZ COLLECTIONSEPTEMBER 28, 2018JANUARY 6, 2019SCMA WAS THE FOURTH AND FINAL VENUEwell as by others less known, including a numberfor this exhibition, which showed how visual artistsof women artists. The works were selected from theexplored all sides of the debate about womens natureHorvitz Collection, one of the most comprehensive pri-and their proper roles in society.vate collections of its kind. We are deeply indebted to Organized into nine thematic sections, Jeffrey and Carol Horvitz for opening their remarkable Becoming a Woman addressed fundamental questionscollection to us, and for their enlightened generosity about womens lives in the 18th century. The exhibitionsin making this exhibition possible. We also extend our title evoked the philosopher Simone de Beauvoirsthanks to Melissa Hyde, Professor of Art History and famous statement in her 1949 book, The Second Sex, Distinguished Teaching Scholar, University of Florida, that one is not born, but becomes a woman. Follow- and the late Mary Sheriff, W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished ing de Beauvoir, we understand woman, like genderProfessor of Art History, University of North Carolina, more generally, to be culturally determined rather thanChapel Hill for curating the inaugural exhibition, and a natural category. Whether in 1949, today or three to Alvin L. Clark Jr., Jeffrey E. Horvitz Research Cura-centuries ago, women have always been defined tor, emeritus, Harvard Art Museum, for organizing the 12 through cultural, social and political norms. exhibition.How can one define women? This question Visitors to the exhibition could experience was posed in an entry on Woman in the Encyclopdie,the different phases of an 18th-century womans life in the most influential publication of the 18th-century France, from childhood and adolescence, to marriage, philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment.to social life, to raising a family, to finding a p ofession. The impulse behind the question was typical of theThe exhibition succeeded in making the lives of Enlightenments revolutionary project to understand18th-century women in France relatable to viewers in humanity and the world based on reason and science. Itour present time and place. Some of the questions raised was a topic of acute interest in the Age of Reason. Manyby the works on display are still debated today. As such, Enlightenment authors assigned women to limitedthe exhibition offered visitors, especially students, the and secondary roles based on scientific beliefs of the opportunity to discuss and ponder the role of women in day about female biology and what nature intended.our own society and what we may learn from history. Others insisted that the subordination of women hadThe students that visited the exhibition from its basis only in social convention and not in any naturalSmith as well as other local institutions approached it differences between men and women. According tofrom the fields of histor , art history, French studies and this view, women (at least those of a certain class orpainting. Becoming a Woman demonstrated that an race) could aspire to be something more than obedientexhibition of this kind appeals to a wide range of visitors daughters, beautiful wives and virtuous mothers.and challenges some of our preconceived notions France in this period produced some of theabout history and its relevance today.most deliciously elegant and sophisticated art ever made. Becoming a Woman presented superb examplesThe exhibition was supported by the Suzannah J. Fabing Programs Fund for the Smith College Museum of Art, the Louise Walker Blaney, class of 1939, by leading artists of the 18th and early 19th centuries, asFund for Exhibitions and the Charlotte Frank Rabb, class of 1935, Fund.on view \\ Becoming a Woman in the Age of Enlightenment: French Art from the Horvitz Collection'