Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939

MARCH 29 – JUNE 22, 2025

3rd Floor, North Building
Venue Curator: Erika Holmquist-Wall

During the early twentieth century, Paris was the destination of choice for talented and independent American women determined to move beyond the limitations that restricted them at home. Drawn by a strong desire for independence, they crossed the Atlantic to pursue personal and professional ambitions in a city viewed as the epicenter of modernity. Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939 recaptures the experiences of these unorthodox women who found in Paris the freedom to blaze new trails in a variety of fields, including art, literature, design, publishing, music, fashion, journalism, theater, and dance. As foreigners in a cosmopolitan city, they escaped the societal expectations and constraints of both the United States and France. Many used their newfound liberty as an opportunity for self-reinvention and discovery.

Portraiture provides a revealing lens through which to view the cultural shifts American women helped instigate in Paris. Their defiance of social, professional, and gender norms rendered conventional modes of female portraiture obsolete. Brilliant Exiles highlights the dynamic role of portraiture in articulating the refashioned sense of self and the new conceptions of modern female identity that resulted from the interventions of American women in Parisian life.

Despite significant differences in their circumstances, the women in this exhibition shared many experiences and points of contact. Featuring over 85 artworks across various media and accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, Brilliant Exiles visually graphs the social and creative networks and points of intersection that linked these various groups, with an emphasis on sites of sociability and production that were overseen by women. Through vivid portraits and compelling biographies, the catalogue and exhibition recover a history that will be unfamiliar to many museum visitors, revealing the impact that American Women had on modernist Paris, as well as the city’s transformative effect on these brilliant exiles from the United States.

Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939 is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution.

This exhibition has been organized by the National Portrait Gallery and received Federal support from the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative Pool, administered by the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.