Blockbuster Manet show at Royal Academy opens all hours

The Royal Academy is introducing Sunday night viewings for its new blockbuster show on Édouard Manet on top of extended opening hours.

The first major exhibition in Britain to showcase the Frenchman’s portraiture will open until 11pm on Fridays and Saturdays in line with the biggest shows of recent years.

But the Royal Academy is also instituting a series of exclusive Sunday night viewings in March and April at a premium price of £30 that will include the offer of a drink and multimedia guide as well as the guarantee of smaller crowds.

Huge numbers are expected for the exhibition which brings together more than 50 paintings as well as pastels and contemporary photographs from public and private collections in Europe, Asia, Brazil and the USA, many never before seen in the UK.

MaryAnne Stevens, the curator, said it was a rare opportunity to see a collection of Manets.

British galleries own comparatively few works by the artist — a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism — who defined a modernist approach in his depiction of contemporary subjects.

It will be the first British exhibition to explore his portraits, which have been largely overlooked in favour of his “genre” paintings or scenes of everyday Parisian life.

Yet Manet, who died in 1883 aged 51, used the same models in both categories of works — while never producing the same style of work twice.

Ms Stevens said: “As an artist, he was absolutely not consistent in his approach. Every single work is unique. It made the critics crazy because they couldn’t pigeonhole him. On the whole, he had negative responses to his work in his lifetime.”

The exhibition will explore the world of 19th century Parisian society where Manet’s friends included fellow artists Berthe Morisot and Claude Monet as well as literary figures such as Émile Zola and Stéphane Mallarmé.

Many of his sitters came from this wide social circle but he also painted his family, including wife Suzanne Leenhoff who had been his father’s mistress.