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Rebecca Ness’s exhibition Inheritance revisits historical paintings through contemporary scenes and personal references. The works include a version of Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère set at New York’s Cubbyhole and still-life-inspired paintings featuring art-history materials.
Artist Rebecca Ness is reworking canonical paintings in Inheritance, a show at Morgan Presents in New York that places art-history references in contemporary settings. Among the works described in a Hyperallergic review is a reimagining of Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère as a crowded scene at Cubbyhole, a lesbian bar in Manhattan’s West Village.
Hyperallergic’s report describes the exhibition as Ness’s exploration of inheritance as transformation: rather than treating the past as something simply handed down, the artist takes historical imagery and changes its setting and meaning. The review says this approach lets Ness claim art history as material she can use and reinterpret.
In one painting, Manet’s 1882 bar scene is relocated to Cubbyhole. The source identifies the work as A Seat at Cubbyhole (2026), an oil painting on linen. The new setting connects a familiar work in European art history with a contemporary queer social space in New York.
Other paintings draw on the trompe l’oeil board works of 19th-century artists William Harnett and John F. Peto. Ness updates that format with a corkboard arrangement of cut-out and crumpled art-history textbook pages and photographs of herself. Hyperallergic likens the result to a Pinterest board brought to life. The report also identifies Orange Wall (2026) as an oil painting on linen.
Putting Canonical Art in New Settings
The exhibition’s central move is to make art history feel available for present-day use, rather than fixed behind museum walls or confined to its original period. By placing Manet’s barmaid and bar scene in a lesbian venue, Ness shifts the work’s social setting and invites viewers to consider who appears in familiar images and who gets to reinterpret them.
That matters beyond the specific references. Reworking canonical paintings is not new, as the Hyperallergic review acknowledges, and the source does not present Ness as the first artist to do so. Its assessment is more specific: the work is strongest when the references become personal. The Cubbyhole scene and the self-referential collage-like board make the past part of the artist’s own lived and visual world.
The show also offers a way into debates about inheritance and cultural authority. Ness’s paintings do not merely quote earlier artists; they alter the conditions around their images. The effect, as described in the review, is an assertion that the canon can be revisited by artists whose experiences and communities have not always been centered in its best-known works.
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From Manet to the West Village
The source report, published by Hyperallergic under the title “Rebecca Ness Stakes Her Claim to Art History,” frames the exhibition through the idea of inheritance. It contrasts the conventional association of inheritance with money, heirlooms or property with Ness’s approach of taking something old and making it new.
The clearest example is Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, painted in 1882. Ness shifts its bar setting to Cubbyhole, which the source describes as a West Village lesbian institution. In another group of references, she draws on 19th-century still-life paintings by Harnett and Peto, replacing or adapting their carefully arranged surfaces with contemporary printed matter and personal photographs.
The available report identifies Morgan Presents as the venue in New York and names two 2026 works, but provides no exhibition dates, full checklist, dimensions or detailed account of the show’s reception beyond the review’s assessment.
““Inheritance is akin to transformation: taking something old and making it new.””
— Hyperallergic review
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Exhibition Dates and Full Scope
The supplied source does not state when the exhibition opened or closes, how many works are included, or whether further events or public programs are planned. It also does not provide comments from Ness or the gallery beyond the descriptions and interpretations in the review. Those details should not be inferred from the work titles or the 2026 dates attached to the paintings.
The review’s judgments about the work are its own critical assessment, not independently established facts. The source says the paintings shine when they are most personal; it does not provide broader audience responses, sales information or evidence about how the exhibition has been received outside the article.
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Gallery Details to Watch
The next practical details for readers are the exhibition’s schedule and access information from Morgan Presents, which are not included in the source material. Further reporting could also establish the show’s complete checklist and whether the gallery or artist has issued additional statements about the works.
For now, the confirmed development is the presentation of Inheritance at Morgan Presents and the reported use of historical painting as a starting point for contemporary, personal scenes. Any claims about the exhibition’s duration, wider reception or future presentation remain unconfirmed in the material available here.
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Key Questions
What is Rebecca Ness’s Inheritance?
Inheritance is an exhibition at Morgan Presents in New York in which Ness revisits historical artworks through contemporary settings and personal references, according to Hyperallergic.
How does Ness reinterpret Manet’s bar painting?
She recasts Édouard Manet’s 1882 A Bar at the Folies-Bergère as a scene at Cubbyhole, a lesbian bar in Manhattan’s West Village. The work is identified as A Seat at Cubbyhole (2026), oil on linen.
Which other artists inform the exhibition?
The report says Ness draws on 19th-century trompe l’oeil board paintings by William Harnett and John F. Peto, reworking the format with textbook pages and photographs on a corkboard-like surface.
When can visitors see the exhibition?
The source identifies Morgan Presents in New York as the venue but does not give opening or closing dates. Visitors should check the gallery’s current listings for schedule and access information.
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