She painted with equal mastery and vivacity a galloping horse or a laughing little dog. “His taste for nature began early, during his stays in Quinsac (Gironde) with his merchant grandparents”, says Camille Perrot, mediator at the archives of the metropolis of Bordeaux who present, until September, an additional exhibition at the retrospective of 200 works presented at the city’s Museum of Fine Arts.
An original approach by the artist, born in 1822 in the capital of Gironde, “trained by his father Raymond, at a time when women were not admitted to the Beaux-Arts”, adds Camille Perrot.
First female artist to receive the Legion of Honor
From the documentary collection, she extracted clippings from local newspapers, correspondence from the artist, in particular with the mayor of Bordeaux, and eulogies drawn up, for example, by the local historian Jules Delpit to bring the artist into the Academy of Arts and Belles Lettres de Bordeaux – “but the statutes did not provide for the integration of women, so he resigned like five other supporters of Rosa Bonheur”, explains the curator of the exhibition.
Among the documents presented, Camille Perrot deciphered the dynamic writing of the painter expressing her emotion at being the first woman artist to be awarded the Legion of Honor in 1865, then the first to be elevated to the rank of Chevalier in 1894. .
Or even of her pride in having sold a painting to the Bordeaux museum with “always imprinted, the will of a businesswoman who had to come to terms with the rules of the time and who paved the way for many ‘other women artists’.
“Rosa Bonheur, out of frame”, archives of the metropolis of Bordeauxuntil Sunday September 18, 2022, Monday to Friday, from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m., free entry.
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