Unfortunately in English we don’t have many nouns with gender specific forms so in English the title of the exhibition at the Schirn gallery in Frankfurt has to be Women Impressionists – not so concise. We went to see the exhibition last Thursday, which was the May Day public holiday here. We thought that as it was lovely weather and father’s day that there would be few visitors. Seems other people had the same idea!
The exhibition shows the work of Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès and Marie Bracquemond. It includes some 160 works from international museums and private collections. It was interesting to see how different the subject matter of their paintings is compared to the male impressionists. Most of the works displayed showed portraits of women going about their daily lives – getting up, sewing, bathing children, taking tea with visitors, hardly any landscapes and very few still life paintings. This can be explained in part that women were not allowed to go out unchaperoned and so could only paint things within their own homes.
The work of Mary Cassatt appealed to me most. There were a series of colored drypoint and aquatint prints, she exhibited in 1891, that were inspired by the Japanese masters shown in Paris the year before. This is one of them:
The Letter
Although she wasn’t married and had no children of her own she produced a number of wonderful paintings of mother and child.
Sleepy Thomas
Or this lovely painting of a young girl, who looks completely natural and unposed:
Child in a Straw Hat
I was particularly interested in the part of the exhibition devoted to Marie Bracquemond, because it brought together studies and sketches that she made for her paintings, from various museums and collections, so that you could see them with the final work. This gave quite an insight into the work behind the scenes that leads to a finished work of art. This is not something you often get to see.
This was one of the studies for the painting from the Musée d’Orsay which show three ladies with umbrellas:
Femme a l’ombrelle
All images are press photos from the Schirn Gallery website.
