Impressionism and Critical Disability Studies

Several of the artists best associated with impressionism had or developed disabilities: Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Camille Pissarro experienced changes in their vision; Edouard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir used assistive devices; and Paul Cézanne exhibited traits now associated with neurodivergence. 

As Elizabeth Guffey has observed: “the history of Impressionism is often told as a history of impairment hiding in plain sight. But each time such legends are repeated without carefully considering how disability and ableism shaped both Impressionist art and its reception, we miss the opportunity to place Impressionism within a broader critique of the idea of normalcy itself.” (“The ‘Malady’ of Impressionism: How Claims of Disability Haunted the Modernist Movement,” Art in America, 2022). 

Historical art critics often disparaged impressionism using language comparing their art to mental illness and physical impairment. Medical practitioners have long understood impressionist art as offering clues to posthumous diagnoses and identifications. Art historians and curators are only now beginning to address impressionism and critical disability studies, challenging lingering ableist attitudes in arts and humanities disciplines. 

Join Alexandra Courtois de Vicose, Elizabeth Guffey, Mia Laufer, and Paul Smith as we discuss impressionism through the perspective of critical disability studies. 

Registration

The webinar will take place on Thursday 29 January 2026 at

8 am (PDT) / 11 am (EST) / 4 pm (BST) / 5 pm (CEST)

Please click the button below to register for the event. On 27 January, you will receive a Zoom link to the event.

Alexandra Courtois de Viscose's research draws from disability history to address unexplored facets of late nineteenth-century European visual culture. Her current book project examines Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s oeuvre and life through questions informed by the social model of disability studies 

Elizabeth Guffey is Professor Emerita of Art and Design History at SUNY Purchase and Founding Editor of Design and Culture. Her books include Retro: The Culture of Revival, Posters: A Global History, Designing Disability, Drawing a Fine Line: The Art of Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, and the co-edited volumes Making Disability Modern and After Universal Design. She is completing a book on disability and late nineteenth-century art. 

Mia Laufer is the Irene Leache Curator of European Art at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. Laufer holds an MA and PhD in Art History and Archaeology from Washington University in St. Louis and a BA in Art History from New York University. A specialist in 19th and early 20th-century art, her current research focuses on collaboration in European modern art.  

Paul Smith's aim is to call into question the idea that autism simply imposes ‘deficits’, by showing how – in the case of Cezanne – it also confers perceptual advantages, which can be communicated.  And as an ‘insider’, he challenges the claim that only medical specialists can identify and explicate autism. 

Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, c. 1912. Musée Marmottan.