City of Cinema: Paris 1850–1907

(Los Angeles, CA—December 14, 2021) The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents City of Cinema: Paris 1850–1907, an exhibition exploring the emergence of film in 19th-century Paris. Placing cinema in the context of modern Parisian visual culture, City of Cinema brings together paintings, sculpture, posters, prints, magic lantern slides, optical toys and devices along with photography and film, to reflect the wide range of artistic experiments that culminated in the first attempts at the moving image. Many of these works have never been on view in the United States.

The exhibition is co-curated by Leah Lehmbeck, Curator and Department Head, European Painting and Sculpture and American Art, and Britt Salvesen, Curator and Department Head, Wallis Annenberg Photography Department and Prints and Drawings Department, with collaborating curator Vanessa R. Schwartz, Professor of History, Art History and Critical Studies, University of Southern California.