Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism

EXHIBITION REVIEWS Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism Denver Art Museum | Denver, Colorado October 22, 2017–January 15, 2018 er Paris: Women Artists in for the Denver Art Museum, it landscape, the boudoir, and the Age of Impressionism signaled a continued commitment fashion. The first section, “The Art featured works by 37 to women artists following their of Painting,” focused on restricted female artists, from across 2016 exhibition Women of educational opportunities—a text Europe (including the Abstract Expressionism. According panel emphasized the École des HNordic countries) and the United to curator Laurence Madeline, Beaux-Arts’ policy of excluding States, who were active in Paris in the work of the pioneering female women until 1897—and offered the late-nineteenth century.1 Paris, artists included in Her Paris a selection of portraits and however, was simply a starting continues to be underestimated depictions of women painting, point, meant to facilitate the re- today by art historians.2 To address sketching, copying masterpieces, evaluation of the work of these this, the exhibition celebrated or studying at the independent artists, and the exhibition gave their works—but failed to fully ateliers that were becoming equal attention to the artistic avant- explore why they continue to be increasingly popular. The highlight garde as well as to those adhering underestimated. here was Russian-born Marie to academicism and naturalism The works of art were organized Bashkirtseff’s, In the Studio (fig. 1). The opportunity to view thematically, with rooms (1881), a large-scale academic works by lesser-known artists devoted to women’s lives, history painting of women in a life class was a strength of the exhibit, and painting, young women, children, at the Académie Julian, to which 336 • secac Figure 1, left. Installation view of Her Paris: a testament to women’s dedication Edma have created if she had Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism, to professional training, then, can continued to paint after her Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, also be understood as a feat of marriage, and if her work had October 22, 2017–January 15, 2018, with aggrandizement by a male artist. flourished like her sibling’s or Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau’s La Confidence Lack of access to the École Anna Ancher’s? at left. (Photo: Denver Art Museum) was a significant barrier for The few “great” women whose aspiring women artists, yet Her works have entered the canon— Figure 2, above. Installation view of Her Paris highlighted this reality at Rosa Bonheur, Morisot, and Mary Paris: Women Artists in the Age of the expense of addressing more Cassatt notably—were represented Impressionism, Denver Art Museum, insidious obstacles. This was in the exhibition. But outstanding Denver, Colorado, October 22, 2017– illustrated by two works, also works by artists not afforded January 15, 2018, with Marie Bashkirtseff’s included in the first section. the attention of these canonical In the Studio at center and Edma Judgement of a Day’s Work artists were also included. Lady Pontillon’s Portrait of Berthe Morisot at right. (1883), by the Danish painters Elizabeth Butler’s meticulous (Photo: Denver Art Museum) Anna and Michael Ancher, research into the experiences depicts the couple illuminated of common soldiers is evident many women flocked since it by a single lamp as they critique in her painting, Listed for the afforded an experience akin to the an unfinished painting resting on Connaught Rangers (1878). The École (fig. 2). Bashkirtseff’s work an easel. Painted collaboratively, British artist’s candid portrayal of depicts the cornerstone of artistic with Michael completing Anna’s a recruiting party walking along a training, study of the live model, portrait, and vice versa, the work dirt road, attention to the soldiers’ and reflects the increasing (but speaks to the necessity of support dress and gestures, bravado segregated) access that women from male artists and teachers, paint handling, and treatment had to life classes. However, not and the impact of domestic of the sweeping landscape are mentioned in the museum texts relationships on a woman’s career.4 equally captivating. Finnish artist were several relevant facts: that Across the room was a portrait of Helene Schjerfbeck’s The Door the painting was begun at the Berthe Morisot painted around (1884) features a brevity in paint suggestion of Rodolphe Julian 1865 by her sister Edma Pontillon- application that seems decades for Bashkirtseff’s 1881 Salon Morisot, who quit painting after ahead of its time. The solemnness entry, that he gave the exercise to her marriage at the age of 30, due of this small, de-populated exterior another female student, and that to her unsupportive husband.5 mirrors the artist’s life, as she the final painting was intended as The Morisot sisters’ talents as spent much of her career working a promotional piece for Julian and art pupils are often noted, which in isolation. Finally, Swedish his academy.3 A work displayed as raises the question: What would painter Hanna Pauli’s portrait of art I N Q U I R I E S • Vol. XVII, No. 3, 2018 • 337 EXHIBITION REVIEWS Figure 3, right. Installation view of Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, October 22, 2017–January 15, 2018. (Photo: Denver Art Museum) Figure 4, far right. Installation view of Her Paris: Women Artists in the Age of Impressionism, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, October 22, 2017–January 15, 2018. (Photo: Denver Art Museum) Venny Soldan-Brofeldt (1886–87) through a focus on successful captures the artist’s Finnish friend artists (even if they are still and fellow art student at the marginalized) at the expense of the Académie Colarossi in a candid unsuccessful. On the one hand, moment, seated on the floor this approach was a strength, while sketching, and contrasts since scholarship on many of with more common depictions of these women is limited, and female artists at their easels or in reproductions of their works can ateliers. be difficult to obtain, even today. The show’s inclusion of artists Furthermore, their biographies often omitted from the histories of revealed the impact of personal nineteenth-century art correlates obstacles, such as family and with early efforts by feminist art domestic responsibilities. On the historians to uncover the work of other hand, such information forgotten female artists. Yet, thirty had to be gleaned from a close years ago, in response to these examination of the catalogue. efforts, Griselda Pollock asked, The exhibition celebrated these dubiously, “Is adding women to pioneering women, but failed to art history the same as producing address that they were exceptions: feminist art history?”6 In doing so, many came from upper-class she also emphasized the need for families and had support that a disciplinary paradigm shift that extended beyond financial does more than simply insert these means. Perhaps an exhibition forgotten women into existing re-evaluating this era needs to narratives. acknowledge the women who did Her Paris, though, harked back not pursue careers due to various to early revisionist efforts, and in obstacles, and visibly address doing so, emphasized one of the the mix of personal, social, and oldest conventions in the discipline institutional factors that impeded of art history—biography. The women’s careers. Her Paris was a biographical paradigm shaped missed opportunity to engage with this exhibition in numerous ways, these issues. from the inclusion of biographies Even so, the thematic in the catalogue to rooms that organization of this exhibition explored the lives of women, and was another strength, as it 338 • secac painted a picture of the issues that “Lives of Women,” was decorated exhibition or the catalogue) was preoccupied women artists. It also with chandeliers, brocade benches, a glaring omission. Furthermore, dispelled the myth that women and velvet curtains (figs. 3 and 4). placing these works in the tended to focus on domestic Considering the belief, widespread domestic realm suggested that they subject matter. Nonetheless, in the late-nineteenth century, express an essential femininity—a despite the curator’s intention to that painting (but not sculpture) problematic expectation many in include works that “transcend was an acceptable amateur the era imposed upon works by both genre and gender,” the past-time for bourgeois women women.8 In sum, then, Her Paris installation design of several rooms because they could pursue it at provided a valuable contribution expressly evoked the domestic.7 home, these domestic touches to the scholarship on nineteenth- The exhibit’s “reading room” seem misguided. Indeed, seen in century art by women; however, was meant to evoke a nineteenth- this context, the lack of sculpture it was limited by its stereotypical century parlor, and the section (which was not addressed in the emphasis on biography and art I N Q U I R I E S • Vol. XVII, No. 3, 2018 • 339 EXHIBITION REVIEWS domesticity and a generally Howardena Pindell: exhibition (co-curated by Naomi celebratory tone that failed to Beckwith, of the MCA Chicago, consider why exhibitions like this What Remains to be Seen and Valerie Cassel Oliver, from the are still necessary. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts) Museum of Contemporary presents a wide spectrum of Meghan Bissonnette Art Chicago artwork that demonstrates the Colorado Mesa University Chicago, Illinois inseparability of the formal, social February 24–May 20, 2018 and political dimensions of Pindell’s prolific five-decade career.2 While Endnotes the underlying organization of the 1. The exhibition was organized by the owardena Pindell: What exhibition is chronological, Pindell’s American Federation of Arts, and travelled Remains to Be Seen is the own investment in personal and to the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, first major survey of the collective memory resists such an Kentucky (February 17–May 13, 2018) and multidisciplinary artist ordered reading of her work.

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