This ground-breaking exhibition and publication demonstrated that there was a large-scale realist painting movement (far beyond the work of Gustave Courbet) that led to a new way in which artists from all backgrounds responded to daily life and social conditions. The realist canon was expanded with this show; a second phase emphasized a large-scale naturalist component that touched Impressionism but also was very much concerned with the ways in which the environment, as discussed in novels by Emile Zola, influenced visual creativity.

The Realist Tradition. French Painting and Drawing 1830-1900, Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art in cooperation with Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indiana, 1980