Advice for Anna

Danish painter Anna Ancher (née Brondum, 1859-1935) painted some of the finest works of the Skagen group of realists. She was married to fellow artist Michael Ancher.


(Above: Lars Gaihede Carving a Stick, 1880.)
Her accomplishment is doubly impressive, considering the discouragement she had to endure from people who thought her place was not at the easel.

Vilhelm Kyhm, her former drawing master, sent her a set of china as a wedding present, along with the note suggesting that she go down to the beach with all her painting equipment and set them “to sail the seas, because now, as a married woman, she would no longer want to be an artist, but a housewife.”

Thank you, Anna, for not listening to him!

from Northern Light: Nordic Art at the Turn of the Century, page 44.
Wikipedia on Skagen painters
Wikipedia on Anna Ancher
In Another Light: Danish Painting in the Nineteenth Century

Challenges Faced by Women in Art Academies

There are quite a few photos of female art students in 19th century academic ateliers.

Female art students at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, Stockholm, Sweden

So women had it good, right? But according to academic teacher Sadie Valeri, circumstances for women weren't as ideal as they appear:

"Women were not allowed into the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris until 1898. Until the very late 1800's, women were not able to become professional artists. They could paint as a hobby, but they could not accept money for commissions or sell work. Until the very late 1800's women could not study the live nude model. The small commercial studios that allowed women (like the Academies Julian in Paris) charged women double the tuition men paid, and so those schools were highly profitable." 

Maybe the reason there were so many photos of female students was that the photos served as a form of advertising, inducing wealthy families to send their daughters to study in the expensive ateliers in Paris.

Marie Bashkirtseff, In the Studio

Berthe Morisot

Women were strongly encouraged to pursue flower painting, miniatures, still life, portraiture, or landscape, which were considered minor genres.

Once they had access to live models, they could begin to pursue paintings from history and mythology, which were considered more important.

According to Nicole Myers of NYU, "women artists were virtually excluded from state commissions and purchases as well as from participation in official competitions such as the coveted Prix de Rome, a prestigious scholarship offered to history painters for continued study at the French Academy in Rome."

A woman pursuing an independent career in art was a destabilizing threat to upper-class society. The private instructor to the young sisters Edma and Berthe Morisot told their mother:

“Considering the characters of your daughters, my teaching will not endow them with minor drawing room accomplishments, they will become painters. Do you realize what this means? In the upper-class milieu to which you belong, this will be revolutionary, I might say almost catastrophic.”  
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Read more:
Book: Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900
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Previous related posts:
Thesleff's Echo
Studying Art in Paris, 1902
The Ups and Downs of Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz
Juana Romani, Artist and Model
Advice for Anna Ancher
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Nicole Myers. “Women Artists in Nineteenth-Century France.”
Sadie Valeri atelier

Paint Your Kitchen (Or a Friend's)

In case you missed it, we're doing a "Paint a Kitchen Challenge." Here are some paintings from the past for inspiration.

Isabel Codrington

It's free to enter. There's no entry fee. You can focus on ingredients, the appliances, the tools, the dirty dishes, or the chef or the cook. But try to capture some of the overall scene or ambiance, rather than making an artificial still life.

Anders Zorn

Media accepted include watercolor, gouache, casein, acrylic, or oil. You can also include pen, ink or water-soluble colored pencils. Palette of colors should include no more than four colors plus white. Along with your entry, please list the pigments you used, and a photo of your painting easel in front of the motif.

Carl Bloch

Please post your entries on the Facebook Event page "Paint a Kitchen Challenge.” Enter just one piece. If you do two pieces, please upload your favorite of the two. Also include in your entry a photo of your easel with your work-in-progress in the kitchen where you painted it. You can enter as soon as you finish the piece, but no later than the deadline: December 20th.

Helen Allingham

Five Finalists will each receive a "Department of Art" patch, a free Gurney video tutorial download, and a 5”x8” Aqua Journal sketchbook. The Grand Prize winner will receive the foregoing items, but will also receive a set of brushes, gouache paints, and sketchbooks donated by Pentalic.

Jessie Wilcox Smith

Winners will be announced on December 22 on the Facebook Event page, on this blog Gurney, and on Pentalic’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

Anna Ancher

More info on the Facebook page: "Paint a Kitchen Challenge." If you don't have Facebook, maybe a friend or relative can upload for you and mention your name.

Announcing the "Paint a Kitchen Challenge"

Lunch Prep, 9x12, casein

I painted this little demo while looking into the kitchen of a community center at the SKB Workshop.

Anna Ancher, "Girl in the Kitchen" (Danish, 1859-1935)

I'd like to invite you to join the "Paint a Kitchen Challenge." You can paint your own kitchen, a commercial kitchen, or a church kitchen in water media. You can focus on ingredients, the appliances, the tools, the dirty dishes, or the person cooking. But try to capture some of the actual scene or ambiance, rather than constructing an artificial still life.

Pentalic is offering some cool art supplies to add to the other prizes I'm offering: a free video download and a "Department of Art" patch.

GUIDELINES
• Free to enter. No entry fee.
• The scene can be painted in a private kitchen or a commercial kitchen, but it must be painted mostly or entirely on location. If you want, it’s OK to finish it up with photo reference.
• You can focus on ingredients, the appliances, the tools, the dirty dishes, or the chef or the cook. But try to capture some of the overall scene or ambiance, rather than making an artificial still life.
• Media accepted include watercolor, gouache, casein, acrylic, or oil. You can also include pen, ink or water-soluble colored pencils.
• Palette of colors should include no more than four colors plus white. Along with your entry, please list the pigments you used.
• Please post your entries on the Facebook Event page "Paint a Kitchen Challenge.” If you don't have your own Facebook account, you can have a friend or relative who has an account upload them for you. Just specify in the description that the art is by you. The Facebook Event setting works well for these challenges because people can share feedback with each other.

• Enter just one piece. If you do two pieces, please upload your favorite of the two.
• Also include in your entry a photo of your easel with your work-in-progress in the kitchen where you painted it.
• You can enter as soon as you finish the piece, but no later than the deadline: December 20th.
We ask that all entrants follow @Pentalicart on Instagram and Pentalic’s Facebook page. Also, please use the hashtags: #paintakitchenchallengeand #PentalicandJames
• I'll pick five Finalists, and they will each receive a "Department of Art" patch, a free Gurney video tutorial download, and a 5”x8” Aqua Journal sketchbook. The Grand Prize winner will receive the foregoing items, but will also receive a set of brushes, gouache paints, and sketchbooks .
• Winners will be announced on December 22 on the Facebook Event page, on my blog GurneyJourney, and on Pentalic’s Instagram and Facebook pages.

Albert Anker, "Girl Peeling Potatoes" (Swiss, 1831-1910)

Exhibition: Women Artists in Paris

Yesterday we visited the exhibition "Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900" at the Clark Art Institute. The exhibit presents 70 paintings by women who studied at the 19th-century French academies.

Cecilia Beaux (1855-1942), Ernesta (Child with Nurse)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art,

The show includes some standout works by Cecilia Beaux. William Merritt Chase reportedly remarked of her: "Miss Beaux is not only the greatest living woman-painter, but the best woman-painter that has ever lived." (Source: The Independent, 1899) 

Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), Plowing at Nivernais, Ringling Museum of Art 

Rosa Bonheur is represented by a single large work showing oxen plowing. Although the entire scene is painted with incredible fidelity, and it was widely praised in its time, we wondered about how the oxen were attached to the plow. Oddly enough, we couldn't see any yokes on them. Oxen require a formidable wooden beam and individual bows around their necks in order for the oxen to transfer their energy to the plow.

Elizabeth Nourse (1859-1938) A Mother, 
Cincinnati Art Museum 

Elizabeth Nourse was already so well trained before she arrived at the Académie Julian that her teacher said she didn't need any further instruction. Her first entry to the Salon "A Mother," was hung "on the line," an achievement for any first-time artist.

Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick (1855-1932) Beach Parasol,
Brittany (Portrait of Amanda Sidwall)

The Scandinavians are well represented. Swedish painter Emma Löwstädt-Chadwick portrayed her friend Amanda Sidwall during one of their painting excursions to the Brittany coast. 

Hanna (Hirsch) Pauli (1864-1940)
The Artist Venny Soldan-Brofeldt, 1886–87
Gothenburg Museum of Art, Sweden

Some of the paintings celebrated female friendships and alliances. Hanna Pauli painted her friend Venny Soldan-Brofeldt in the studio they shared in Paris. The curators say:

"Pauli builds this vignette of creativity from items strewn about the studio, including paint-splattered drop cloths, a sketch of a female nude, and tools for clay working, placing Soldan-Brofeldt at the center of it all, with mouth open and legs outstretched, fingering a lump of clay. The subject’s unselfconscious manner—an intentional provocation on Pauli’s part, considering the era’s rigid rules concerning proper conduct—and the directness of the sitter’s gaze make a powerful statement on the validity of the woman artist."

Mina Carlson-Bredberg (1857–1943) Self Portrait

Marriage represented a death knell to some women's careers. Mina Carlson-Bredberg had to give up her career after she was married and told her young nieces that they were lucky they were single.

A minor gripe: it was difficult to read the object labels because most of them were vague, wordy, and written in small sans-serif white type on a dark background, requiring a lot of fumbling with reading glasses and navigating back and forth. I believe a label should be clearly readable from a normal viewing distance for the painting, and it should be short and to the point, focused on enhancing the experience of the artwork itself, not discussing wider sociological issues. That's best left for the catalog.

I would also have liked to see fewer Mary Cassatts and more Rosa Bonheurs. Also, the curators overlooked other worthy women artists who lived and worked in Paris, such as Ellen Day Hale, Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz, Jeanna Bauck, Bertha Wegmann and Juana Romani, but you can't do it all in one exhibition, and let's hope this show opens the doors to more exhibitions featuring women artists.
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Women Artists in Paris, 1850-1900 is at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts through September 3. You can get the catalog on Amazon.

Incidentally, there's a museum called National Museum of Women in the Arts in Denmark

Previously on GurneyJourney:
Thesleff's Echo (cover image of the catalog)
Studying Art in Paris, 1902
The Ups and Downs of Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz

Juana Romani, Artist and Model
Advice for Anna Ancher