Women Impressionists at Schirn Kunsthalle on artrepublic.com
Exhibition running from Feb 22 2008
until Jun 01 2008
Manet, Monet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro – everyone knows the names of famous Impressionists but it is less well known that important women painters also belonged to their circle. Berthe Morisot, a successful and admired colleague, friend of and model for Manet, was highly praised by critics for her relaxed brushstroke as the "most Impressionistic of the Impressionists." The American artist Mary Cassatt developed her unmistakable style in Paris and through her close contact with Degas. Eva Gonzalès, a student of Manet, left behind an oeuvre of great quality though limited quantity as a result of her early death. Marie Bracquemond exhibited with the Impressionists but began to compete with the work of her husband, Félix Bracquemond, and ultimately abandoned painting. This exhibition includes 150 works from numerous international museums, such as the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and from private collections and uses the example of these four women painters to present women artists’ contribution to the Impressionist movement. The four names serve as examples for the fact that considerably more women artists than we are generally aware of were active in that artistically and socio-politically turbulent epoch from about 1865 to 1895, producing high-quality paintings, drawings, engravings, and sculptures. Compared to other movements, Impressionism was particularly suited to accept also women within its ranks. Contemporary critics regarded the paintings of both male and female Impressionists as explicitly "feminine": both in their subjects – everyday scenes, portraits of women, mother-and-child representations, gardens, interiors, still lifes, etc. – and in the pictures’ smaller formats oriented toward a new middle-class clientele. The Impressionist style with its emphasis on light effects, its delicate surfaces, its frequent use of white, its loose brush stroke, and its sketchiness of execution was also seen as "feminine," in the positive as well as in the negative sense. While they frequented the most advanced artistic circles and were respected by colleagues and critics in their day, they soon fell into oblivion. For, from about 1900 on, the history of modern art and Impressionism was informed by a generation of art critics who helped Impressionism gain renown, yet largely ignored the women artists’ share in the movement. Only the American artist Mary Cassatt’s work got a different reception from the beginning, which was in part due to the strong American market. Though gender studies and art history have revised the picture to some extent since the 1970s and Morisot’s and Cassatt’s works are now to be found in the most important international collections, women artists’ contribution to Impressionism is still only little known to a wider public. OPENING HOURS: Tue, Fri, Sun: 10.00 - 19.00 Wed & Thur: 10.00 - 22.00 Image Credits: Image 1: MARY CASSATTWOMAN BATHING, 1890-91, Lithography, printed in colorsSheet 43,3 x 30,5 cm cliché Bibliothèque nationale de France. Image 2: EVA GONZALÈSUNE LOGE AUX ITALIENS, C. 1874, Oil on canvas98 x 130 cmbpk / RMN / Musée d’Orsay / Hervé Lewandowski Image 3: BERTHE MORISOTLE BERCEAU, 1872, Oil on canvas56 x 46 cmbpk / RMN / Musée d’Orsay / Hervé Lewandowski Image 4: MARIE BRACQUEMONDLE GOUTER, 1880, Oil on canvas81,5 x 61,5 cmbpk / RMN / Musée d’Orsay / Bulloz  |
