By Marie Bashkirtseff (1858-1884), The Umbrella, 1883, oil on canvas, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. #WomensHistoryMonth #womanartist #womenartists
A quote from the artist: "Do you think I benefit from what I see when, in order to go to the Louvre, I must wait for my carriage, my lady companion, or my family? This is one of the reasons why there have been no great women artists. . . . But if we were raised in the same manner as men, this inequality which I deplore would disappear, and what remains would be inherent in nature itself. Oh well, no matter what I say, we must cry out and make ourselves ridiculous (I will leave this to others) to obtain this equality in a hundred years. As for me, I will stick it to society by showing them a woman who has become something, despite all the disadvantages it heaped on her."
From the Encyclopedia of Ukraine: "After growing up on her grandparents' estate in the Okhtyrka region of Kharkiv gubernia, Bashkirtseva moved from Ukraine in 1870 with her aristocratic mother to live in Nice, France... She first exhibited her work at the Salon in Paris in 1880, the year that her tuberculosis was confirmed. She continued to paint even though in failing health. Bashkirtseva left some 150 paintings, including compositions, portraits, études, and genre paintings... A selected rendition of her diary, which she kept in French starting in 1873, was published in Paris in 1887 under the title Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff. A vivid and open account of the life of a perceptive 'modern' woman, it catapulted Bashkirtseva to lasting fame. Her letters were first published in 1902.
Bashkirtseva's diary was deposited in the Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris in 1920 following her mother's death. It remained largely unnoticed until the mid-1960s, when contemporary studies of Bashkirtseva drew attention to the fact that much interesting material had been left out of the diary's earlier publication. Subsequent editions have been more complete.”