Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet: the original art-world rebel with a cause, and that cause was shocking the pants off 19th-century Paris. A dapper man about town who enjoyed the finer things, he was an unlikely revolutionary. Yet, with a flick of his brush, he scandalized polite society with paintings like "Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe" and "Olympia," which brazenly depicted contemporary women in the nude. Critics were aghast; pregnant women were reportedly warned not to view "Olympia" for fear of... well, something. Friends described him as witty and charismatic, a natural leader among artists. Rumor has it, however, that this sophisticated rabble-rouser may have been hiding a juicy secret: that the son he was raising was actually his own father's illegitimate child. True or not, it adds another layer to the man who so masterfully blurred the lines between respectability and scandal.