THE SCHIRN PRESENTS ’ CONTRIBUTION TO THE IMPRESSIONIST MOVEMENT IN A COMPREHENSIVE EXHIBITION FOR THE FIRST TIME IN GERMANY

WOMEN IMPRESSIONISTS , , EVA GONZALÈS, MARIE BRACQUEMOND 22 FEBRUARY – 1 JUNE 2008

Press preview: Thursday, 21 February 2008, 11 a.m.

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 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 . The exhibition in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt 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 exhibition “Women Impressionists” is sponsored exclusively by Morgan Stanley. Additional support has been granted by Terra Foundation for American Art.

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 , drawings, engravings, and sculptures. Compared to other movements, 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. In 1896, the year which saw the presentation of a posthumous retrospective of Berthe Morisot, the critic Camille Mauclair, looking back, described Impressionism as an altogether “feminine art” and even presented Morisot as the only true protagonist of this style.

PRESS RELEASE “WOMEN IMPRESSIONISTS – BERTHE MORISOT, MARY CASSATT, EVA GONZALÈS, MARIE BRACQUEMOND,” SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, 7 FEBRUARY 2008, PAGE 1 OF 3

Considering the difficulties, prejudices, bans, and limited range of action 19th-century women found themselves confronted with, one becomes aware of the degree of self-assertion and self-confidence in their talent mustered by these four painters in their fight for a position in the history of modern painting. 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.

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895) was one of the founding members of the Impressionist movement. She was born into a well-to-do French family and took private painting and drawing lessons. She was a student of Camille Corot in the 1860s, and a successful exhibition in the Salon de Paris made Manet become aware of her, with whom a respectful friendship developed. With one exception, Morisot took part in all “Impressionist exhibitions” and, with her relaxed brushstroke and palette of light colors, influenced even Manet who had preferred dark tones for his paintings until then. Her favorite subjects in painting comprised family scenes, portraits of women and children, interiors, landscapes, and views of harbors. In 1877, she married Eugène Manet, Édouard Manet’s brother, with whom she had a daughter, Julie, who frequently posed for her.

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) began to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia in 1861. She moved to France in 1874 and joined the Impressionists in Paris. As a follower of the group around Degas, she earned great respect and attention from her contemporaries. Her foremost subjects are portraits, scenes at the opera, and the relationship between mother and child – a theme to which she dedicated herself without sentimentality and relying on a style of her own. Especially Cassatt’s pastels number among the most extraordinary works of her era. Her graphic works became well known, too; their two-dimensional, clearly outlined forms reveal the influence of Japanese woodcuts. In 1914, Cassatt lost her sight and had to give up her career as an artist. That Impressionism enjoyed popularity in the United States at an early point in time is partly due to her activities. Her oeuvre has hitherto been intensely analyzed in the USA above all.

Having been a student of Manet and become known as a colleague portrayed by him, Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883) has only been included in minor group shows together with Morisot and Cassatt so far. At the age of sixteen, Eva Gonzalès began to study drawing and painting in the studio of the painter Charles Chaplin, who had only female students. Although Eva Gonzalès is classified as an Impressionist artist, she – like Manet – participated in none of these painters’ group exhibitions. She frequently portrayed women, but also dedicated herself to still lifes and landscapes. After having given birth to a son, Eva Gonzalès died from an embolism in 1883. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents a high-quality selection of her work that has been only insufficiently appreciated so far.

The painter Marie Bracquemond (1840–1916) was the porcelain painter and graphic artist Félix Bracquemond’s wife. Her husband involved her in his work, and she produced designs for porcelain and wall decorations. One of these designs, which she presented in the Salon de Paris of 1874,

PRESS RELEASE “WOMEN IMPRESSIONISTS – BERTHE MORISOT, MARY CASSATT, EVA GONZALÈS, MARIE BRACQUEMOND,” SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, 7 FEBRUARY 2008, PAGE 2 OF 3

attracted Degas’ attention, who introduced the artist to Renoir and Manet whose paintings she admired. She showed her paintings at several exhibitions of the Impressionists. Félix Bracquemond had only little understanding for his wife’s artistic production and was jealous of her success. Worn down by his criticism, she limited her activities as an artist to her immediate environment and gave them up altogether after 1890. Unlike her female colleagues’ quite successful careers, her life and development may be regarded as typical of the era. Taking the most recent research results into account, the exhibition in the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, including more than 40 works by the artist, offers the most comprehensive presentation of Marie Bracquemond’s oeuvre since 1919.

An exhibition of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “Women Impressionists” will be shown by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco from 21 June to 21 September 2008.

CATALOGUE: “Women Impressionists. Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond.” Ed. by Ingrid Pfeiffer and Max Hollein, with texts by Jean-Paul Bouillon, Anna Havemann, Pamela Ivinski, Linda Nochlin, Sylvie Patry, Ingrid Pfeiffer, Griselda Pollock, Marie- Caroline Sainsaulieu, and Hugues Wilhelm. 320 pages, ca. 280 ill., ca. 250 of them in color, English and German editions, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757-2079-3 (English), ISBN 978-3-7757-2078-6 (German), 29,80 € (SCHIRN) / 39,80 € (trade edition). BOOK: “Meisterinnen des Lichts” (Women Masters of Light). Four stories on the women Impressionist artists by Diane Broeckhoven, Noëlle Châtelet, Annette Pehnt, Alissa Walser. Ed. by Ingrid Pfeiffer, paperback edition, German, 96 pages, 4 ill., Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern, 2008, ISBN 978-3-7757- 2076-2. 9,80 €. SYMPOSIUM: “Impressionism is feminine” (in English), 6 April 2008. With Tamar Garb, Anna Havemann, Linda Nochlin, Ingrid Pfeiffer, Griselda Pollock, and Bill Scott.

VENUE: SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt. EXHIBITION DATES: 22 February – 1 June 2008. OPENING HOURS: Tue., Fri. – Sun. 10 a.m. – 7 p.m., Wed. and Thur. 10 a.m. – 10 p.m. INFORMATION: www.schirn.de, e-mail: [email protected], phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-0, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240. ADMISSION: 9 €, reduced 7 €, family ticket €, groups of at least 15 persons with advance booking 7 € / person. BOOKINGS: www.impressionistinnen.de. SPECIAL FARE: Deutsche Bahn its Kultur-Ticket-Spezial for 39 €, for information see www.bahn.de. CURATOR: Dr. Ingrid Pfeiffer, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. ASSISTANT CURATOR: Sylvia Metz. EXHIBITION ARCHITECTURE: Nikolaus Hirsch + Michel Müller, Daniel Dolder. MEDIA PARTNERS: DIE WELT, WELT am SONNTAG and WELT KOMPAKT, Vogue, hr2, Deutsche Bahn AG.

PRESS: Dorothea Apovnik (head) Michaela Hille (press officer), Gesa Pölert. SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, Römerberg, D-60311 Frankfurt, phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-118, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240, e-mail: [email protected], www.schirn.de (texts and images for download under PRESS).

PRESS RELEASE “WOMEN IMPRESSIONISTS – BERTHE MORISOT, MARY CASSATT, EVA GONZALÈS, MARIE BRACQUEMOND,” SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT, 7 FEBRUARY 2008, PAGE 3 OF 3