A scintillating account of the cultural freedom and empowerment that American women experienced as leaders in the avant-garde scene in early twentieth-century Paris
 
For the American women who made Paris their home during the early decades of the twentieth century, the city offered unique opportunities for personal emancipation and professional innovation. While living as expatriates in the international center of all things avant-garde, these women escaped the constraints that limited them at home and enjoyed unprecedented freedom and autonomy. Through portraiture, this volume illuminates the histories of sixty convention-defying women who contributed to the vibrant modernist milieu of Paris—including Berenice Abbott, Josephine Baker, Zelda Fitzgerald, Peggy Guggenheim, Romaine Brooks, and Gertrude Stein. Several of them rose to preeminence as cultural arbiters while exploring culture-shifting experiments in fields such as art, literature, publishing, music, fashion, journalism, theater, and dance.
 
Beautifully illustrated, Brilliant Exiles features essays that trace the divergent trajectories of American women in Paris, examining the impact of race, class, and sexuality on their experiences in the French capital. The texts also highlight the role of portraiture in articulating new conceptions of female identity that American women were at liberty to develop in Paris. Working collaboratively with their portraitists, they honed the images that would memorialize them and redefine the imagery of modern womanhood.
 
Published in association with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
National Portrait Gallery
(April 26, 2024–February 23, 2025)
 
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY
(March 29–June 22, 2025) 
 
Georgia Museum of Art
(July 19–October 12, 2025)

“Outstanding.”—Mary Beard, Times Literary Supplement, “Books of the Year”

Name a “Must-Read Art Book to Pick Up This Fall” by The Observer

“The story of the brilliant exiles is a fabulous one and it is told with aplomb in this beautifully illustrated book.”—Beth Williamson, Studio International

“Brilliant Exiles represents the culmination of years of research and study to restore the repressed history of America’s female moderns. It belongs on the shelf of any reader interested in the cultural legacy of this period and beyond.”—Cassandra Langer, Gay & Lesbian Review/Worldwide

“Rigorous but accessible. . . . This collection . . . emphasizes the beauty of cultural exchange: Paris changed these artists, and was changed deeply by them.”—Emma Flynn, French Studies

Shortlisted for the Alfred H. Barr Jr. Award, sponsored by the CAA

2025 Secretary’s Research Prizes winner, sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution

2025 Prose Award finalist, Art Exhibitions category, sponsored by the Association of American Publishers (AAP)

Robyn Asleson is curator of prints and drawings at the National Portrait Gallery.