16 October 2026

There is nothing simple about Henri Rousseau. 19 Nov. Prof. C Green.

There’s nothing simple about Henri ‘Le Douanier’ Rousseau

Christopher Green, Emeritus Professor at the Courthauld Institute of Art and co-curator of the recent major Rousseau exhibition in Paris, explores what we know — and what we may never know — about Rousseau and his extraordinary paintings.

Thursday 19th November at 7.30 

Keats Community Library NW3 2RR 

Professor Green’s introduction:

“The exhibition ‘Henri Rousseau, l’ambition de la peinture’, which I co-curated, finished in late July at the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris. 

It was a collaboration between the Orangerie/Musée d’Orsay and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, where it opened last October with the title ‘Henri Rousseau: a Painter’s Secrets’.  

In Paris, it attracted approaching 100,000 each month for four months – too many really, given that they had to queue outside for security right through the heat-waves.

I want my lecture to use revealing and sometimes unexpected things we’ve learned from doing the show and from new conservation research not just in Philadelphia but in Paris, but I want it to bring out how much we will never know about Rousseau the man, as well as things we do know, and to look at his paintings with the question in mind: just how simple was he as a man and a painter?  He is still called ‘naïf’ by many. 

Tickets are £12 from the Library and available on-line from Wegottickets - you can click HERE

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