Paris Is Always a Good Idea, and American It Girls Knew That Even a Century Ago
âParis is a very special place. It was also a place where women from the United States could go and be free to express themselvesâŠa place that made it possible,â said Robyn Asleson, curator of the National Portrait Galleryâs newest exhibition, âBrilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900â1939.â Opening April 26, the show features paintings, drawings, sculptures, and photographs of more than 60 culturally influential American women, including Josephine Baker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and ThĂ©rĂšse Bonney, who fled to Paris during a time when gender coding sought to stifle women in the United States; their newfound freedom overseas ignited a world of opportunities.
For Asleson, the inspiration for the exhibit dates back to the #MeToo movement in 2017. âSome of the earlier women in the exhibition coped with very similar situationsâŠso I was interested in doing an exhibition about women who tried to make it in a manâs world earlier in history. Did we have precedents? I thought of Paris,â she said of developing the premise. âAnd then we had everything happening after George Floydâs death, a racial reckoning. And more recently, weâve had all this discussion of book banningâŠand weâve had a lot of pushback lately on LGBTQ [issues].â
As she started drawing parallels to the plights faced by American women of the early 20th centuryâlike Lois Mailou Jonesâs struggle to be taken seriously as an artist in light of racial discrimination; Sylvia Beachâs fight to champion literature deemed obscene; and Natalie Barneyâs yearning to lead an authentic life as a queer womanâAsleson realized how this time period stateside bore an uncanny resemblance to present-day America. âThe more I worked on it, the more I thought, Wow, this story is really relevant today. These issues are still in the news and weâre still grappling with them,â she said.
This idea inspired her to delve into a variety of archives, including Vanity Fairâs, and an incredible history emergedâone of an eclectic group of American women drawn to Paris and threaded together by a fervor to grasp something bigger. Through portraiture spanning mediumsâless a creative liberty and more a desire for true representation across socioeconomic classâby a myriad of artists, ranging from Pablo Picasso to Tsuguharu Foujita, the exhibition paints a picture of a vibrant and nuanced network of women keen to engage in the pursuit of the modernist culture Paris so valued.
Though the women were diverse in personality, practice, and social status, core to all of their identities was their Americanness in Paris, a place that existed as an âanti-America,â Asleson said, where their homelandâs societal norms around gender, race, and sexuality did not confine them. In Paris, their positioning as American women gave way to a voice unafforded to women otherwise.
âThey were all very conscious of being AmericanâŠ. They always referred to themselves as American. And in a way, being American gave them some advantages. They were exceptions to the rule,â Aselson said. âThey didnât have to behave the same way French women were expected to behave, and American women always had this image in Europe as being very free and sporty and direct.â
Paris allowed these women the creative freedom to experiment with expression through fashion, art, literature, music, publishing, journalism, theater, and dance. In turn, their American identity gave way to a level of authority in Paris that cemented them as influencers nearly a century before social media would make the term ubiquitous.
As they largely informed the culture we know today, they also laid the foundation for the ways women could navigate the modern world and engage with it creatively. And with a lasting legacy that astounding, one canât help but wonder, as Asleson did: âWhat if there hadnât been a Paris?â
Below, preview a selection of works from the exhibition, on view at the National Portrait Gallery through February 23, 2025: