Ruth Leon recommends… International Women’s Day – National Gallery

International Women’s Day – National Gallery

In celebration of International Women’s Day, Gallery Educator Fiona Alderton chooses some highlights from the National Gallery collection of
  paintings by women. From teenage prodigies to a botanical expert commanding higher prices in her day than Rembrandt, here is an opportunity to find out more about some of the pioneering women artists in the collection and their paintings and careers. 

With considerable skill, Alderton highlights these artists and tells a story for each of their paintings. But you have to wonder, how did artistically talented young girls in the 17th, 18th, or 19th centuries get to be painters famous enough to have the National Gallery in London collect their work? Depressingly, the only route to training for female painters was if you had a father or brother already established as an artist who was willing for you to join his studio. Nearly all these wonderful artists were daughters or sisters of painters.

It helped to be beautiful, too, like Elizabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, court painter to Queen Marie Antoinette. Not too beautiful, though, because it was
generally believed that with those looks, the paintings couldn’t be hers, there had to be a man around who was doing the actual painting. There wasn’t, but it was an uphill battle to convince the art world of that which may be why she chose to paint herself holding a palette. She certainly wouldn’t have been painting in those clothes.

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