Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau: Breaking Ground

"La Captive"
by Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau

"Elizabeth Gardner was a forerunner of movements that allowed women a foothold in the sacred sanctuary of a government-subsidized system - one that had its roots in the art schools and perpetuated itself through the Salons into the marketplace.

The episode of Gardner's entry to the all-male studios in Paris is recounted in a 1910 article on the artist. The story represents the earliest account of the incident, and gives the Gobelins Tapestry Manufactory as the school where it took place. Her entry into l'Académie Julian apparently occurred later:

'The great drawing school of Paris in the sixties was the Gobelin Tapestry Manufactory supported by the government. No woman had ever crossed its threshold as a student, nor had one ever applied for admission to its select classes. 'I resolved,' said Madame Bouguereau, 'to follow Rosa Bonheur's example in a similar emergency. My hair was short, fever having clipped it before I quit America. I applied to the Paris police for permission to wear a boy's costume. [The police report is dated Feb. 1, 1873.] This was readily granted. In that guise I was admitted to the Gobelin with the approval of the professor who was interested. I never suffered the slightest annoyance. The students were most courteous. I was never remarked in the streets of Paris and always changed my costume when I returned home...

When M. Julien, inspired by the American girl's pluck and talent, opened to women students his famous studio in the Passage des Panorames, Miss Gardner discarded her boy's costume and left the Gobelin School. Where at Gobelin she was the only woman, she had now in the Julien three fellow [female] students. This number soon increased, for, the precedent once established, women not only flocked thither from all parts of the world, but divided the honors with the men, art recognizing no sex in its awards.'

Her thoughts were occupied with gaining recognition as an artist and achieving success in her chosen career. Gardner realized that the Salon was one of the few avenues open to her to reach those goals.

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Elizabeth Jane Gardner: Her Life, Her Work, Her Letters," MA Thesis by Charles Pearo, McGill University, 1997)