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Find on these pages the biographical notes of the women artists listed in this exhibition.
From Abbema to Beaux
Sculptor, painter and engraver, Louise Abbema was born in Etampes. She trained with the history painter Louis Devédeux, then joined the workshop of Charles Chaplin (1825-1891), but for a short time, preferring the workshops of Jean-Jacques Henner (1829-1905) and Carolus-Duran (1837-1917)...
She was born in Springfield, USA. After completing her journalism studies, she studied sculpture in New York in 1918. Frequenting the artists of Greenwich village, she met Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) and Man Ray (1890-1976) before going to Paris to complete her apprenticeship...
The daughter of a painter, Georgette Agutte grew up in an arts-friendly environment and immediately turned to an artistic career. In 1893 she followed as a free auditor the courses of Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) at the School of Fine Arts of Paris...
The Parisian photographer Laure Albin-Guillot is making her professional debut in the fashion field, as she regularly collaborates with magazines...
Cited in Giorgio Vasari’s Vite (1511-1574), thanks to the testimonies of Michelangelo (1475-1564), Sofonisba was one of the first women portraitists recognized in Europe...
Marie Bashkirtseff’s childhood and adolescence took place mainly in Italy and France, «in a rich, elegant and sometimes eccentric environment» (Letters, p. 258)...
Learn more about Marie Bashkirtseff
The daughter of a wine merchant established in Paris, Madeleine Basseporte testifies from a young age of an acute sense of observation and a taste for drawing...
A student at the Académie Julian, Amélie Beaury-Saurel follows the drawing and nude workshops. Notably a student of Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921), she attended there Marie Bashkirtseff...
Cecilia Beaux is the daughter of an American teacher and an industrialist from Avignon, who abandoned her family shortly after the birth of Cecilia...
From Beck to Bracquemond
Julia Beck was born in Stockholm. She entered the Academy of Fine Arts in 1873. She attended the same class as Karin Bergöö (1859-1928), who became the wife of Carl Larsson (1853-1919)...
The daughter of a civil servant, born in Paris in 1768, Marie-Guillemine Leroulx de la Ville was sent, at the age of thirteen, by her father, who encouraged her artistic talent, to Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755-1842)...
Nicknamed by Victor Hugo (1802-1885) «the Golden Voice», but also by others «the Divine», Sarah Bernhardt is considered by many as one of the greatest tragedies of the 19th century...
From the age of twelve, Hélène Bertaux enjoyed privileged access to artistic training thanks to her father-in-law Pierre Hébert, a sculptor and plaster repairer.
The daughter of a Spanish father and a Franco-Polish mother, María Gutierrez Cueto y Blanchard is handicapped at birth by a very heavy physical deformity, from which she will suffer until her death...
Anna Boch was born in Saint-Vaast. Her father is the co-founder of the Boch Frères-Kéramis potteries in La Louvières. She receives a musical and pictorial training, two passions that she will jointly lead...
Born in Bordeaux in a family of artists, Rosa Bonheur trained with her father, Raymond Bonheur, a landscape painter, in the family workshop.
Olga Boznanska is the daughter of a Polish engineer and a French. She studied painting in her hometown, then, from 1886 to 1889, she moved to Munich, where she copied the old masters...
Marie Quivoron was the daughter of a naval officer, who died shortly after his birth. His mother remarried and, in the early 1850s, the family moved to Etampes, where Marie took the courses of a certain Vassort...
From Breslau to Claudel
Of fragile health, Louise Breslau enjoys a general education in the convent then takes her first drawing lessons between 1874 and 1876...
Lilla Cabot belongs to an ancient and distinguished family in Boston. In 1874 she married Thomas Sergeant Perry (1845-1928), a writer, Harvard literature professor and friend of Henry James...
From the intellectual bourgeoisie of Nantes, Lucy Schwob has a surprisingly early intellectual training, rich and brilliant...
The Callot sisters are the daughters of Jean-Baptiste Callot, a painter from Alençon, and Marie-Julie Rival, a lace merchant, who taught them this art.
Born in Calcutta, England. As a French aristocratic mother and father in the Bengali region, she was raised in France and England to acquire the education due to her rank...
On October 26, 1720, the Venetian Rosalba Carriera was elected to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris on the proposal of the painter Antoine Coypel and several of her classmates...
Mary Cassatt is the fourth of five children (family ties will play a considerable role in both her life and her work)...
From David’s studio, Constance Charpentier, née Bondelu, considered one of the best portraitists of the time...
Born in Fère-en-Tardenois, near Soissons, Camille Claudel is the eldest of three siblings, consisting of her sister Louise and her brother Paul...
From Conti to Gardner-Bouguereau
She was born in Ermont-sur-Oise into a wealthy family. From her childhood, she retained a taste for the sea, travel and science...
Lucie Brû was born into a family of famous doll makers. His father was a collector: in 1900 he acquired from the Seurat family...
She is the daughter of Jules Breton (1827-1906), a renowned artist at the time, who will be her master, and niece of the painter Emile Breton (1831-1902)...
Victoria Dubourg spent part of her childhood in Frankfurt, where her father taught French. Back in Paris, on an undetermined date, she enters Fanny Chéron’s studio...
Born into a well-to-do family in Bordeaux, Clémentine Hélène Dufau had to lie down for long periods of time after a fall in her childhood and keep her at rest. To avoid boredom, she starts drawing...
Mary Fairchild’s mother, Mary Augusta, is a miniature painter. Her father, chief operator at the Western Union Telegraph Company...
Royalist, Catholic, single and feminist, Félicie de Fauveau, a 19th-century sculptor who has fallen into oblivion, nevertheless has a career praised by critics of the time and a romantic life...
Born in a modest boarding house run by her parents near Chicago, Marie Louise Fuller became familiar with the scene from the early years of her childhood...
She received a solid education in a college for young girls. She first taught French, before going to Paris in 1864. She starts by making copies for American amateurs...
From Gonzalès to Labille-Guiard
Eva Guérard was born in Paris. Her father was a man of letters, a friend of Zola, and perpetual president of the Société des gens de lettres. His mother is Walloon and a musician.
Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot was a pupil of Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (1760-1832), when he was head of the Académie de France in Rome...
Woman of British high society born in Cumbernauld (near Glasgow) in 1822, she is the daughter of a famous admiral...
Of Belgian origin, daughter of Osval Heuvelmans, draftsman and cabinetmaker of art, Lucienne Heuvelmans begins her training in the family workshop, installed in the faubourg Saint-Antoine...
Blanche Hoschedé is the second of three daughters of a luxury cloth merchant and collector, Ernest Hoschedé (1837-1891)...
From Scottish parents, Beatrice How studied at Herkomer’s School in London. Around 1892, she went to Paris and attended the academy founded by Auguste-Joseph Delécluse (1855-1928)
Marie Victoire Jaquotot is the student and then wife of Etienne-Charles Leguay (1762-1846), who, after directing the production of the Dihl manufacture in Paris during the French Revolution...
A major figure in German art, sculptor, designer and engraver Käthe Kollwitz embodied one of the faces of political art in the first half of the 20th century...
Germaine Krull was born in Wilda-Poznan in present-day Poland. From 1915 she studied photography at the Lehr und Versuchsanstalt für Photographie, Chemiegrafie, Lichtdruck und Gravure in Munich./.
The career of Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, among the best portraitists of her time, constantly compared to Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun her competitor, is significant of the difficulties of ascension...
From Leyster to Moillon
A rare female painter of the Dutch golden age, Judith Leyster appears as the female counterpart of Frans Hals (1580-1666)
From an artistic background - daughter of the Parisian painter and engraver Nicolas Loir (1624-1779) and sister of the sculptor and portraitist Alexis III Loir (1712-1785)...
Born in a rural area of the department of Oise, orphaned at the age of seven, Séraphine Louis is placed as a small servant from the age of thirteen towards Paris...
Jane Lévy was born on September 28, 1894 in Paris into a traditional Jewish family of Alsatian origin. Very young, she stands out for her talents as a designer...
Raised in Argentina in a Franco-Yugoslav family, Henriette Théodora Markovitch, returned to Paris in 1926, decided to train in painting...
Born in Fribourg, Adèle d'Affry, from a noble Swiss lineage, knows an extraordinary destiny...
Learn more about Adèle d'Affry, Duchess of Castiglione Colonna dite Marcello
Jacqueline Marval had nothing to do with an artistic career. Following the example of her parents, she began her education...
Exhibited at the Salon of 1819 under the name of its author, «Mademoiselle Mayer», The Dream of Happiness, acquired under Louis XVIII, appeared in 1820 in the very recent museum of Luxembourg...
Occupying a prominent place in the genre of fruit still lifes, Louyse Moillon is one of the few women painters of the seventeenth century French whose work is today well identified...
From Montigny to Sergeant-Duhem
Jenny Montigny received a bourgeois upbringing. Her parents were both insensitive to the arts...
The eldest daughter of Auguste Nélaton (1807-1873), personal surgeon to Emperor Napoleon III, Camille Nélaton married in 1858 Adolphe Moreau Jr (1827-1882), State Councillor and collector...
Berthe was a descendant of Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) and had two sisters, Yves (1838-1893) and Edma (1839-1921).
From 1874 to 1881, Elisabeth Nourse studied at the McMicken School of Design in Cincinnati. After the death of her parents in 1881, she joined forces with her twin sister, Adelaide (1859-1893), who was a sculptor...
Princess and sculptor, Marie d'Orléans is the third child, of a sibling of ten, from the couple formed by Louis-Philippe d'Orléans and Marie-Amélie de Bourbon-Sicile...
Born in Lyon and daughter of a silky master settled in Marseille in 1720, Pierrette Candelot married in 1736 Claude Perrin, a descendant of a family of potters from Nevers...
The daughter of a lawyer and sub-prefect, raised in the Perigord Dordogne, Jane Poupelet studied at the School of Fine Arts and Decorative Arts in Bordeaux, where she was the first woman admitted...
A painter, Sophie Rude, née Fremiet, has long remained unknown, overshadowed by the successes of her husband, François Rude (1784-1855), one of the great romantic sculptors...
His parents own a lace factory. Marie Sergeant receives lessons from the landscaper Adrien Demont (1851-1928), who lives with his wife, the painter Virginie Demont-Breton, in Wissant...
From Sirani to Wautier
The career of Elisabetta Sirani, shortened early at the age of twenty-seven, in the service of the cause of women painters, is exceptional for the time...
The name of Sophie Taeuber Arp, discreet artist, is often associated with that of Jean Arp (Strasbourg, 1886 – Basel, 1966)...
Marie Talbot is a French ceramicist. She is known for her production of sandstone decorated with relief scenes. His work and productions are heavily influenced by culture and popular imagery...
Coming from the working class, Suzanne Valadon is quickly engaged in working life, working in various small trades, before working, from the age of fifteen, as a model...
Juliette and Marthe were designers at the National Museum of Natural History. They had a passion for circus arts...
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun was the daughter of Louis Vigée (1715-1767), a pastellist painter who was a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture.
Thanks to the first retrospective dedicated to the artist in 2018 at the Museum aan de Stroom (MAS) in Antwerp, thanks to the work of art historian Katlijne Van Der Stighelen, the work of Michaelina Wautier...
