Impressionist She-roes

Impressionist She-roes
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Impressionist painters, regardless of nationality, lived in Paris in the late 1800s. An exhibit now showing at the Denver Art Museum, Her Paris, showcases the women impressionists, their art and their lives. The artists featured include American women who broke social norms of the day to pursue their passion – painting. Match the woman with her accomplishment:

_____ 1. An associate of Edward Degas, her depictions of mothers and children are her most popularly known paintings.

_____ 2. Although she studied impressionism in Paris, she is known as a realist painter, an artist who specialized in portraits and who taught portraiture for 20 years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

_____ 3. She influenced the U.S. and Japanese impressionists, won medals for her work, and painted children, landscapes and portraits.

A. Cecilia Beaux

B. Lilla Cabot Perry

C. Mary Cassatt

Considered one of the three grand dames of impressionism (along with Berthe Morisot and Marie Bracquemond), Mary Cassatt grew up in Pennsylvania in an upper middle class family where travel to Europe was considered an important part of a complete education. As early as age 15, over her family objections as being an artist wasn’t deemed a fitting career for a woman in society at the time, she started studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and continued her studies during the Civil War (1861-1865). To be considered a serious artist, Cassatt moved to Paris in 1866 with her mother and family friends acting as chaperones. Since women were not admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, she studied privately and began to have her work admitted to juried exhibits. She returned to the U.S. and tried to make a living as an artist, but returned to Europe in 1871. In 1877, she began her association with Edgar Degas and the impressionists. After 1886, Cassatt experimented with a range of art techniques and after 1900 focused on the mother and child motifs with which she is popularly associated. Inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame, both Cassatt personally and her paintings have been featured on U.S. postage stamps.

Although she had no formal art training until she was 36 years old, Lilla Cabot Perry produced a significant body of work and influenced the U.S. and Japanese impressionists. Her first training came in Paris where her family lived during 1887-1889. After seeing a Monet painting in 1889, she sought his advice and during the next nine summers benefited from his guidance. From 1898 to 1901, her family lived in Japan and Perry studied Japanese fabrics and prints, incorporating them in the 80 paintings she produced while living there. Perry exhibited her works at important exhibitions of the time including the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago and won medals for her work in Boston, St. Louis, and San Francisco. She achieved international acclaim during 1894-1897 and had her works exhibited in a solo show, a tremendous accomplishment for an artist. Over the course of her career she painted children, landscapes, and then portraits.

Known primarily as a portrait painter, Cecilia Beaux grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began art lessons at age 16 from one of her relatives, Catherine Ann Drinker, who would become Beaux’s role model. At age 18, Beeaux became a drawing teacher at a school, gave private art lessons and began painting portraits. By 1876, she was attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and she won the Mary Smith Prize at Academy exhibitions in 1885, 1887, 1891, and 1892. She traveled to Paris at age 32 but found that impressionism did not suit her temperament. She would remain a realist painter for her entire career. Returning to Philadelphia, Beaux painted many portraits, won prizes and had many exhibitions during the remainder of her career. In 1895, she became the first woman to have a regular teaching position at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She would remain a teacher there in portrait drawing and instruction for the next twenty years. Her work includes a portrait of First Lady Edith Roosevelt and drawings of President Teddy Roosevelt. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt declared Beaux “the American woman who had made the greatest contribution to the culture of the world.” In 1942, the National Institute of Arts and Letters presented Beaux with a gold medal for lifetime achievement.

Learn about more she-roes and celebrate amazing women. These women who were impressionist artists are among the more than 850 women profiled in the book Her Story: A Timeline of the Women Who Changed America. I am proud to tell women’s stories and write women back into history. I stand on their shoulders.

(Answers: 1-C, 2-A, 3-B)

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