The Royal Academy of Arts presents the first major exhibition in the UK to showcase Edouard Manet’ s portraiture. The exhibition examines the relationship between Manet’ s portrait painting and his scenes of modern life. By translating portrait sitters into actors in his genre paintings, Manet guarantees the authenticity of the figures that populate his scenes of contemporary life and asserts a new, more potent relationship between Realism and Modernity. Manet: Portraying Life includes over 50 paintings spanning the career of this archetypal modern artist together with a selection of pastels and contemporary photographs. It brings together works from both public and private collections across Europe, Asia, Brazil and the USA.