James Tissot (French, 1836–1902), "The Artists’ Wives," 1885; oil on canvas; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and The Grandy Fund, Landmark Communications Fund, and "An Affair to Remember" 1982, 81.153
James Tissot (French, 1836–1902), "The Artists’ Wives," 1885; oil on canvas; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and The Grandy Fund, Landmark Communications Fund, and "An Affair to Remember" 1982, 81.153
James Tissot (French, 1836–1902), "The Artists’ Wives," 1885; oil on canvas; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia; Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., and The Grandy Fund, Landmark Communications Fund, and "An Affair to Remember" 1982, 81.153

Main Galleries

Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855 – 1914

Jun 21, 2026 - Sep 6, 2026

Presented by: Joe Orgill Family Fund for Exhibitions

Organized by: Dixon Gallery and Gardens in collaboration with the Ordrupgaard in Charlottenlund, Denmark and the Joslyn Art Museum in Nebraska, USA

Café Society: Art and Sociability in Paris, 1855 – 1914 examines the development of the French café, a crucial and accessible site for artistic discussion, and, ultimately, how cafés became the subject of works of art themselves.

Café Society is comprised of more than fifty works of art drawn from public and private collections in the United States and Europe. The exhibition opened at the Ordrupgaard in Charlottenlund, Denmark, on February 5, 2026, and remained on view through May 31, 2026. The show then traveled to the Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, where it will run from June 21 – September 6, 2026. Our colleagues at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska, will host the final venue of Café Society from September 26, 2026, through January 17, 2027. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by D. Giles, Ltd. in England, featuring essays by Julie Pierotti, the primary organizer of the exhibition, Dorthe Vangsgaard Nielsen, curator at Ordrupgaard, Taylor J. Acosta, Chief Curator & Curator of European Art at The Joslyn, along with Jeffrey Jackson and Scott Haine, scholars noted for their research on French café culture.

Organized into thematic sections, the exhibition and catalogue seek to demonstrate the multitude of factors that led to the rise of café culture, from the French Revolution and the growth of the bourgeoisie to Haussmannization and the Franco-Prussian War. Though ubiquitous, cafés were also infinitely varied in their nature, making them intriguingly difficult to categorize both in the fin-de-siècle and today. As places where Parisians and expatriates of various backgrounds mingled daily, cafés were often considered a microcosm for the city of Paris itself. At the dawn of the twentieth century, the café remained an important part of daily life for artists and provided the inspiration for experiments with new approaches to art-making.

The works presented in Café Society navigate these complexities while simultaneously demonstrating how the café fundamentally changed the fabric of Parisian life, allowing for daily collective social activity. These spaces proliferated rapidly, shifting how people experienced the city and each other, leading to increasingly connected populations. Alongside this social progress, the Paris café became a pervasive motif in European and American art of the nineteenth century.

Sponsored by:

  • The Scheidt Family Foundation
  • Anonymous | Susan and Damon Arney | Debbie and Richard Binswanger | Kathy and Jack Blair | Kate and Michael Buttarazzi | Holly and Paul T. Combs | William B. “Billy” Dunavant, Jr. Foundation | Theodore W. and Betty J. Eckels Foundation | Andrea and Doug Edwards | Marylon Rogers Glass | Amanda and Nick Goetze | Julie and Rob Hussey | Anne and Mike Keeney | Mark Lavender and Guy Sellars | Debbie and Chip Marston | Mabel and Phil McNeill | Betty and Jack Moore | Snow and Henry Morgan | Nancy and Steve Morrow | Irene Orgill | Linda Pelts | Lyn and Bill Reed | Chris and Dan Richards | Irene and Fred Smith | Kaki and Vince Smith | Susan Adler Thorp | Ainslie and Hardy Todd | Adele Wellford Neville and Warfield Williams