The Forgotten Masters

in the 1880s Edgard Agha reportedly once told a group of friends that women could never become great painters because they could never grasp the basic principles of design this was overheard by Mary Cassatt who went back to her studio asked one of the Scoleri girls to model and to wear a simple night dress and painted her with such mastery as to prove him wrong when Digga saw the painting he said in a low voice I never believed women could paint so well he actually acquired the painting and hung it in his home until his death if you ask most people to name three famous female painters from history very likely they can't some may come up with a few names Cassatt or O'Keefe perhaps but those two artists are fairly recent when you consider the whole of history the reality is there are an amazing number of incredibly talented female painters in history one of the reasons you may not have heard of them is because many of them were simply forgotten once they died off note during the Middle Ages most artists didn't even sign their work so we really don't know if they were male or female but certainly since the early Renaissance there have been many women who have achieved the same and in some cases more success while they were alive than their male counterparts in fact several had their work mistaken for male masters such as DaVinci Titian house and even Sargent in their lifetimes some female masters commanded the highest prices for their work or sold more pieces some painted for kings and queens as well as the most powerful figures in Western Europe women achieved many firsts in the field of fine are overcoming great obstacles to achieve their success some were even able to support large families with their art and one artist was so devoted to her work she literally died at her easel throughout much of history the primary subjects that were considered appropriate for women were still life and portrait work genre and history painting the most respected subjects were often difficult for women due to the fact that they were not allowed to participate in life drawing in order to learn Anatomy and landscape painting was considered too vigorous but many female masters pushed beyond these typical boundaries for example Elizabeth Southard and Thompson also known as lady Butler may be one of the best examples of this she was an English artist from the late 1800s and after a visit to Paris where she was exposed to panoramic battle scenes she decided to try her hand at the subject but from a different perspective Thompson brought the viewer down to eye level a more personal perspective and even captured scenes of the soldiers after a battle her painting roll call was such a success it was eventually purchased by Queen Victoria at the peak of her career she was one of the best-known and most popular painters in England her work was instrumental in changing the public's perception of a female's capacity to paint but she wasn't the first to press the boundaries as far back as the mid 1600s we find Elisabetta surrani an italian artist who broke from the norm and painted history paintings often featuring female figures Sophie Anderson was a very successful American artist in the mid to late 1800s and produced amazingly realistic genre paintings of women and children Julie Hart beers was another American artist from the late 1800s and one of the few successful professional female landscape painters of her day and the only female landscape artist to achieve renown in the United States in the 1800s subject matter wasn't the only limitation that female artists had to push boundaries on throughout history sometimes there was outright bias Angelica Kauffmann was an English painter from the late 1700s to early 1800s she was a close friend of Joshua Reynolds and a very successful portrait and history painter by the late 1700s she was one of the most sought-after artists in England she and Mary Moser were two of the 36 founding members of the British Royal Academy in 1768 an achievement unheard of for women in that day her membership offered her the rare opportunity to studied live drawing next to artists such as Blake Turner and Reynolds however when the artist Johannes ofany created a painting commemorating the founding and its members Angelica and Mary were relinquished to being represented as paintings on the wall and Angelica's husband while he's seen standing with his cane on top of a female tarsem but their achievements were extremely valuable in spite of the fact that after Mary's death in 1819 a hundred and eighty-nine years passed before the academy admitted another female now most successful women had family members who supported them such as their fathers or husbands but sometimes they met with resistance from those closest to them Marie Brock amond was a French impressionist from the late 1800s she didn't always pay an impressionistic style initially she was marvelous but was drawn to Impressionism when her husband also an artist introduced her to Monet Degas and Goga through their influence she developed her own collar style and loosened her brushwork for this she received intense criticism and ridicule from her husband to the point where over time she eventually gave up painting but she had and is regarded as one of the three quote grande dams of Impressionism alongside Martha and Kazan her work disappeared from public recognition and wasn't rediscovered until the 1980s and of course being female can put you at risk for even more intense obstacles Artemisia Gentileschi painted in the 1600s she was an Italian artist and considered one of the greatest female artists of the Baroque age she learned to paint in her father's workshop he was an artist and friends with Caravaggio however as a young woman she was raped by her father's assistant to prove that she was telling the truth in the trial she had to submit to torture by thumbscrews the assistant was jailed for eight months in Artemisia went on to paint some of the most dramatic scenes of her generation many of them scenes featuring female heroines and you can kind of see the influence of her traumatic event she was the first woman accepted into the Academy of Design in Florence and her clients included international patrons as well as royalty artemisia wasn't the only artist to achieve noble firsts and achievements also in the 1600s we find still-life painter Clara Peters she was a Flemish painter who's credited with popularizing what's called breakfast or banquet paintings these are still life paintings that feature food together with items that you'd find in a banquet she's also the earliest significant female painter of the Dutch Golden Age and is considered one of the finest still-life painters in art history and I've note if you look closely you can see she painted a little reflection of herself in one of the cups Marybel painted in the mid-1600s and was one of the first professional female painters in England she was so successful that she was able to support her large family on her income and one of her Commission's was to paint a portrait of king charles ii of england almost a hundred years earlier in the 1500s we find Italian portrait painter sofonisba anguissola who is one of the first known female artists and one of the first to gain an international reputation Michaelangelo actually mentored her for a time sending her some of his drawings for her to copy after which he would critique and advise she became such a talented painter that some of her paintings were mistaken for those of Titian and even da Vinci she became a court painter under king philip ii of spain who supported her financially and socially and when age prevented her from painting she supported the arts and mentored young painters including the great Anthony Van Dyck and Rubens is also said to have copied her work as part of his learning surprisingly angry Isola disappeared from history until she was rediscovered in the 1970s but she's not alone there were many other incredible female masters who were left out of history for decades and even centuries for example Elizabeth LeBron was an extremely successful and talented French painter of portraits in the late 1700s to early 1800s at only 12 years old when her artist father died she began taking commissions in order to help support the family and by 17 she was considered a full-fledged professional artist her talent gained her a commissioned to paint Marie Antoinette which was the start of a very close patron relationship Lebrun would go on to receive commissions from some of the most powerful ruling families throughout Europe and to command the highest prices for her work in France when the French Revolution begin Lebrun fled France in disguise and spent 12 years moving throughout Europe developing this same prestige wherever she lived after her death she was mostly forgotten other than occasional mention because she happened to paint famous sitters she wasn't truly rediscovered until the 1980s in the 1600s we find Judith leycester a dutch genre and portrait painter at 24 she was accepted into the painters guild in the hague one of the first of two female painters admitted into the guild it's unclear whether she studied in the workshop of friend's house but she was certainly an admirer and some of her paintings have been mistakenly credited to house as well as other male contemporaries over the years and this is due to her level of skill an individual style she too disappeared from history once she died and was rediscovered in the 1890s of note she was a mother of 15 another surprising omission from history although for a briefer time was Elizabeth Norris who is an American realist she painted portraits and landscapes and supported herself and her sister for fifty-five years through her painting she was widely acclaimed for her skill and unique perspective focusing on realistic depictions of peasants and their children her works were purchased by the French government and hung alongside paintings by Whistler homer and Sargent she's one of the few women in her time to gain international recognition but when she died in 1938 that reputation disappeared until revitalized later in the century now female masters weren't just from the primary European nations we can find female masters from a broad range of nationalities such as yo sefa de abuse a Spanish born Portuguese artist who painted altar pieces and religious paintings for churches and monasteries in the late 1600s she also painted beautiful still life paintings in her lifetime she painted over a hundred and fifty works making her one of the most prolific artists of Baroque Portugal she's also one of the most revered Portuguese painters of the 17th century Nora Nielsen Gray is a Scottish painter from the late 1800s to early 1900s or painting mother and child orders on abstract when people were not painting abstraction an incredibly innovative style for her time period she was very successful and at the time for death in 1831 was considered the foremost Scottish woman painter and then we have Laura wheeler wearing an african-american artist from the early 1900's and one of the major female artists of the Harlem Renaissance her professional training was remarkably extensive first attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and then winning a scholarship to the Academy day LeGrande Shamir in Paris waring is known for her portrait work especially of prominent african-americans frida kahlo was a Mexican painter also from the early 1900's she's considered one of the most famous modern artists and one of the most well known female painters she combined European art styles with Mexican folk art to create a unique and highly regarded art style of her own and in the far east humorous shown painted budging uh paintings in the early 1900's she was one of Japan's most renowned female artists and rose to fame when Queen Victoria's son purchased one of her paintings to exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 she was also one of only two women ever chosen as the Imperial households official artist she was also the first woman to be awarded the prestigious order of culture in Japan Annamarie - sure Gill was a Hungarian born artist of Indian descent she lived a good portion of her life in India and combined European painting techniques with Indian aesthetics in this way like callow she developed an innovative style of her own she's the originator of modern art in India and India released a postage stamp of one of her paintings in her honor UNESCO named the year 2013 the year of amorita share gill to celebrate a hundred years since her birth song consider her one of the greatest female avant-garde artists of the 20th century up to this point we've seen amazing examples of the talent and success of female painters since the 1500s if you thought they were impressive wait until you see the following women the creme de la creme in the 1500s there is an Italian portrait painter by the name of Lavinia Fontana she's regarded as the first career female artist in Western Europe there are over a hundred paintings attributed to this artist more than any other female for 200 years Lavinia received the same wages for her commissions as her male counterparts and was able to support her family of 11 children with her art she earned a degree at the University of Bologna and was admitted to the Academy a-- de san luca and Rome both Rarity's at that time for women another Italian painter is rose Alba Cary era who painted in the late 1600s to early 1700s rose Alba was also admitted to the Academy at de San Luca she painted commissions for European courts throughout Europe and was instrumental in popularizing the use of pastels professionally for portraiture she's considered one of the most successful female artists of all time Rachel Roush was a contemporary of carry-ons but she was a Dutch painter of florals she achieved international fame for her realistic flower paintings that many said conveyed a feeling of life she was invited to be a court painter to a Bavarian Prince was a mother of ten and is often considered the greatest female Dutch realist painter [Music] in the 1800's we find Rosa Bonheur who not only stepped outside the typical acceptable female subject matter by becoming one of the leading French animal painters she also painted her scenes with such force that together with her almost photographic realism brought her international fame she received many many honors in her lifetime including being the first woman to be awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1865 her painting The Horse Fair was the largest animal painting of its time and was eventually acquired by Cornelius Vanderbilt blonde hair was one of if not the most famous female of her day also in the 1800s we have Barrett Marysol who is the granddaughter of the French master Jean on RA fraggin on Marcel was a French impressionist and one of the founding members of the impressionist group she was the only woman to participate in their first exhibit and went on to participate in all but one of their shows she was close friends with Edouard Manet and ended up marrying his younger brother ma Rizzo actually sold more work in her lifetime than Monet Renoir or Cicely and was quite renowned in her time and finally Cecilia bow was an American portrait painter from the late 1800s to early 1900s her works have been compared to and sometimes confused for that of John Singer Sargent she was the first woman on faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts received honorary degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Yale and held 14 one-woman shows at a time when it was still difficult to be a female artist beau is considered one of the most successful portrait painters of her era and was commissioned by the wives of both Theodore Roosevelt and Andrew Carnegie so you can see that as we mentioned in the beginning Mary Cassatt and Georgia O'Keeffe were far from being the only female master painters women artists have come a long way since the early Renaissance and through all the obstacles and all of the restrictions we find a multitude of women who through their skill hard work and determination managed to succeed in their careers now we just need to remember them [Music] you

Channel: Jill Poyerd Fine Art

Views: 83,409

Rating: 4.8986144 out of 5

Keywords: fine art, watercolors, artist, history, masterpieces, oil painting, pastels, masters, painters, Cassatt, O'Keeffe, Morisot, Beaux, Beale, Bonheur, Bracquemond, Carriera, Fontana, Gentileschi, Kahlo, Kauffmann, LeBrun, Leyster, Moser, Neilson, Nourse, Obidos, Peeters, Ruysch, Sher-Gil, Shoen, Sirani, Waring

Id: cRtJ_PZJab0

Length: 23min 19sec (1399 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2019