Rosa
Bonheur : All Nature's Children by Gabriel P. Weisberg
In one dictionary of art, Rosa
Bonheur (1822-1899) is given only eight lines and dismissed as a
"minor French animal painter." In another, she is lauded
(along with Edwin Landseer) as "the most famous animal
painter of the 19th century." In this illustrated catalog for
a French and American traveling show of 58 paintings, prints,
drawings and sculpture by or about Bonheur (who dared to wear
trousers and smoke cigarettes in public), she is described as
someone who today would be a lesbian, a self-publicist (like her
friend Buffalo Bill), and a defender of animal rights. She was
also the most gifted member of an amazing family of artists, led
by her father, the painter Raymond Bonheur, who (like Charles
Willson Peale) set up an artistic workshop in which four of his
children (Rosa, Auguste, Isidore, and Juliette) were trained in
the manner of Renaissance artists. But all that is long forgotten,
and if anyone today has heard of Rosa Bonheur, it is inevitably
because of her finest and most famous painting, The Horse Fair
(1853). Purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt, it was brought to the
U.S. (where her artistic abilities and personality "meshed
with American interest in innovation and bravura") and now
hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. -- Reviewer: Roy R.
Behrens (see more about me) from Ballast Quarterly Review,
Vol 14 No 1, Autumn 1998
Women,
Art, and Society (World of Art) by Whitney Chadwick
Of
course you've heard of Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Degas, but what
about Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Leyden and Berthe Morisot? If
you left college art history classes wondering why women are so
often the subject of Western art but so rarely its creators, this
book will prove fascinating. In her comprehensive, readable and
richly illustrated text, Whitney Chadwick examines not only the
works of little-known but extremely gifted women artists, but the
strategies by which women have been excluded from the traditional
canon of "great artists." She points out numerous
instances in which a woman's works have been attributed to her
less talented father, lover or simply another, more famous male
contemporary. Most importantly, Women, Art and Society
illuminates a wonderful world of art which can speak for all of
us-from a woman's perspective. -- Naomi Yavneh
Women
Artists : Works from the National Museum of Women in the Arts by
Nancy G. Heller
Written by best-selling
author and art historian Nancy Heller and featuring the most
noteworthy artists and works of the country's preeminent women's
art museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts in
Washington, D.C., Women Artists is the definitive volume on
the history of women in art. Spanning over 500 years, from the
Renaissance through the present, this beautifully designed volume
features portraits, biographical backgrounds, and discussions of
the work of eighty-six artists, exploring their art within the
historical context in which it was created. End notes and a
complete listing of the museum's 2,600 holdings are included as
well, making this book the most dynamic and authoritative volume
on women artists ever published.
Queen Victoria requested one of Bonheur's
paintings, The Horse Fair, be hung in Windsor Castle and in
1865 she became the first woman to receive the cross of the Legion
of Honor.
