Ambrosia Tønnesen (1859 – 1948)Īmbrosia Tønnesen was wearing bloomers (popular cycle wear for women in the 1890s) when she worked in her studio. Louise exhibited frequently at the Salon des Artistes Françai in Paris until 1926. Louise started painting at an early age and received the first recognition for her work at age 23 when she painted a portrait of famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt (in 1875), her lifelong friend and lover. She was born into a wealthy Parisian family, who were well connected with the local artistic community. Louise Abbéma (1853 – 1927) was a French painter, sculptor and designer of the Belle Époque. Self-portrait by Louise Abbéma (1876) and Sarah Bernhardt 1875 by Louise Abbéma (1875). Mary and France’s relationship lasted for 34 years until Mary’s death in 1896. However, she is known to have been a lifelong friend of French artist Rosa Bonheur. Soon after Mary ended her career as an artist. They fell in love and in 1863 they settled together in London. In 1859 Mary became financially independent after the death of her father and in the winter of 1861-62, she met Frances Power Cobbe, a writer and leading women’s suffrage campaigner. She was a member of the international colony of artists in Rome along with artists such as American lesbian sculptor Harriet Hosmer. In 1853 she was working in the studio of fellow Welsh sculptor John Gibson in Rome. Mary Lloyd (1819 – 1896) was a Welsh sculptor. The richly illustrated biography was published in 1909 as Rosa Bonheur: sa vie, son oeuvre. After Nathalie’s death American artist Anna Elizabeth Klumpke became Rosa’s second wife and her biographer. She lived in a relationship for 45 years with Nathalie Micas. Rosa wore men’s clothes when she worked with the animals who were her models. Her most famous work, the monumental Horse Fair which measured 2.5 m high by 4.90 m wide was completed in 1855. A French government commission led to Rosa Bonheur’s first great success: Ploughing in the Nivernais, exhibited in 1849. She had an ardent love for horses, cute calves, dogs and other domesticated animals. The dome of La Salpêtrière is visible in the background.įrench painter Rosa Bonheur (1822 – 1899) was both famous as an artist and as a lesbian in her life. Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur (created in 1852 – 1855). This article presents glimpses of their lives. The informal networks of the lesbian artists in pre-1950 Europe and their loving relationship are likely to have influenced their creative practice they were not equally explicit in their writings about the importance of their romantic partners and “wifes” as source of creative inspiration, guidance and moral or financial support, or their personal diaries have been lost to history. All the women worked in some way or other to create their versions of woman-centered communities through salons, all woman dance groups, performance, personal networks, etc. The ‘lesbians’ were followers of the Sapphists, thus these terms describe the implicit class system of the homosexuals community of the time in Europe. The ‘sapphists’ identified with Sappho (the Greek poet) i.e. Around 1900 the terms ‘invert’, ’lesbian’, ‘homosexual’ and ‘homosexuality’ were to some extend interchangeable with ‘sapphist’ and ‘sapphism’. The noun ‘lesbian’ was first recorded in the 1890 Billing’s Medical Dictionary. Greek poet Sappho’s association with erotic love between women dates to at least 1825 in writing in English, sparking the use of words like ‘sapphist’ and ‘sapphism’. I use the term ‘lesbian artists’ as an umbrella term in this article, as a description of women artists who loved women and chose follow their desires and get involved in romantic relationships with women rather than following the (heteronormative) European norm: to get married. The term ‘lesbian artist’ meaning a ‘lesbian feminist artist’ was coined by the feminist movement of the 1970s.
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