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Labille-Guiard was admitted as a member of the French Academy. She was a staunch defender of the rights of women artists.
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After the French Revolution the French Academy resolved not to admit any women at all.
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It took a long way before men and women reached parity in the art world. But contemporary artists would not be where they are today if it were not for their 19th century predecessors. . In those days, it was very problematic to engage in artistic activities as a woman. Despite new learning opportunities, women were often denied. Art was considered a man's business, but some brave ladies remained devoted to their work, despite the difficulties and limitations.
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Women artists also opened private studios; there were a dozen of them between 1820 and 1840, the two most famous of which were those of the porcelain painter Marie Victoire Jaquotot and the miniaturist Lizinska de Mirbel.
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In the second half of the 19th century, the workshop of Charles Chaplin (1825-1891) where Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales or Madeleine Lemaire were trained was the most important.
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In general, the most successful female artists of the nineteenth century, such as Rosa Bonheur and Mary Cassatt remained unmarried. Additionally, virtually all of the women artists with a significant degree of public acclaim were closely associated with successful male artists as their pupils, models, or daughters. For example, Berthe Morisot’s acceptance into avant-garde circles was facilitated by her relationship with Manet, her brother-in-law.
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There is no doubt that contemporary female artists likely wouldn’t be where they are today without their 19th century predecessors who went to Paris to pursue an education in the arts.
Women of that period fought against stereotypes in times where female artists were systematically excluded from the structures that could train them - e.g they weren’t admitted by the government-run École des Beaux-Arts until 1897, a situation forcing them to follow less official channels. -
The British Government School of Design (later the Royal College of Art) admitted women from its founding but only into a "Female School".
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Académie Julian is founded by Rodolphe Julian. “One could argue he was a feminist in his own right, but he was also an entrepreneur,”
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At the 1848 Salon, which was declared free and therefore without a jury, nearly 300 female participants flocked to the Salon, including many very young artists who would probably not have tried their luck in normal times. Criticism was very severe against the exhibitors of both sexes, with the notable exception of the young painter, Rosa Bonheur, whose paintings were noticed; moreover, at the end of the Salon, she was honoured with a gold medal and a public commission.
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It was founded as the Society of Female Artists (SFA) in about 1855, offering women artists the opportunity to exhibit and sell their works. Annual exhibitions have been held in London since 1857, with some wartime interruptions.
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A woman artist surrounding this time was Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot, a painter and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists.
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Anne Laura Herford was a British artist in the early 19th century, and in 1860, was the first woman to be admitted to the Royal Academy schools. Her career was relatively short, but during that time she exhibited at the Royal Academy twelve times.
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In 1865, she was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for services to art, and promoted to Officier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1894. This latter was the first time a woman was awarded such an honour. Indeed, Art is a Tyrant confirms what researchers into women's situation in the arts have commonly found.
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A Mandoline Player depicts a young girl playing the mandolin (mandoline is apparently the French spelling for this instrument). She’s wearing white, red and blue – interestingly enough the national colors of Cassatt’s native United States and her adopted country of France.
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Awarded a gold medal at the 1872 Salon, she became the first and only woman ever to receive such an honor. Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau was accepted to the Salon more than any other woman painter in history and all but a few of the men.
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Femme Fatale: an attractive, mysterious, and dangerously seductive woman who will ultimately bring disaster to any man who becomes involved with her.
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The Union of Women Painters and Sculptors (Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs) was founded in Paris, by sculptor and educator Hélène Bertaux, as a society for the promotion of female artists. (Inaugural speech: “The woman artist is an ignored, little understood force, delayed in its rise! A social prejudice of sort weighs upon her; and yet every year, the number of women who dedicate themselves to art is swelling with fearsome speed.”).
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Artists take over for the state the running of the official Paris Salon and the number of female exhibitors falls by half! But despite this fact some female painters excel and gain recognition.
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She was a Russian diarist, painter, and sculptor mostly known for her journal.
She wrote several articles for Hubertine Auclert's feminist newspaper La Citoyenne in 1881 under the nom de plume "Pauline Orrel." One of her most-quoted sayings is "Let us love dogs, let us love only dogs! Men and cats are unworthy creatures." -
The first Impressionist exhibition in the US was organized by art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Both paintings were The boating party & Two Women Throwing Flowers.
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Also during that time period her paintings were accepted in 25 Paris Salons.
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She was one of the best documented French artists of the early 20th century. Valadon's body of work has been of great interest to feminist art historians, especially given her focus on the female form. her images of nude women, tended to be less idealized than the male post-impressionists' representations.
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Born in Barcelona, she was painter noted for portraiture .She made her début in the Salon de Paris in 1874, where she was considered one of the most important artists of the Salon in 1880.
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Excluded from receiving free training at the state-sponsored École des Beaux-Arts until 1897, women turned for instruction to the studios of established artists or to private academies, which provided them with a reduced curriculum often at great expense.
While life drawing classes were an essential part of academic study, they were denied to women in both public and private institutions through much of the century as they were deemed inappropriate for proper young ladies. -
Virginie Demont-Breton fought for the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris to open to women, and won.
France, despite being known as a beacon for European artists of that time, decides to provide women with state-sponsored education in arts well behind Sweden, Germany, Russia, England and Denmark. From this year women could attend theoretical classes. -
After her death, Bonheur’s career was celebrated with a retrospective exhibition at Galerie Georges Petit.
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Female artists in France can finally attend atelier workshops.
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Female artists finally get the right to participate in Prix de Rome, a French scholarship for arts students, initially for painters and sculptors, that was established in 1663. Winners were awarded a bursary that allowed them to stay in Rome for three to five years at the expense of the state.
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First female winner of Prix de Rome in sculpture category - Lucienne Heuvelmans
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First female winner of Prix de Rome in painting category - Odette Pauvert
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One of the main reasons for the fact that women artists were airbrushed from history was lack of research into their work. Very often, seeing a great painting, art historians attributed it to male painters. What is more, it was quite frequent for men to ignore female painters and whenever they were married to another artist, they assumed that it was the husbands who helped women paint.
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For centuries, it was decent for women only to do needlework, and if to draw, then flowers and berries. But to create real painting, to create entire fictional worlds was the privilege of men. Being a “serious artist” was considered a man's prerogative, so serious women artists appear as late as women lawyers and doctors - at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. And since then their number has been growing.
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To sum it up and give a little contemporary perspective, even though a huge progress was made possible thanks to the pioneers such as Rosa Bonheur we can still see some inequalities between sexes in the world of art. It is still common for male painters to be exhibited more often than females - mostly because their works attract bigger crowds.
The need for female representation in arts is therefore still very valid today. We need to be as brave as women of 19th c. and beyond.
