David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

own show, they said, they wouldn’t be
bound by the restrictive rules of the
Salon, where Olympia was considered
an outrage and where the medals were
won by paintings of soldiers and
weeping women. They could paint
whatever they wanted. And they
wouldn’t get lost in the crowd, because
there wouldn’t be a crowd. In 1873,
Pissarro and Monet proposed that the
Impressionists set up a collective called
the Société Anonyme Coopérative des
Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs.
There would be no competition, no
juries, and no medals. Every artist
would be treated as an equal. Everyone
but Manet was in.
The group found space on the