Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau: The Way Forward

"Ploughing in the Nivernais" by Rosa Bonheur

"Parallel to the individual attempts at claiming one's right to equal education and status were collective women's movements such as the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs which had been founded in 1881 in Paris. [At its peak it had 450 members, including noted painter Marie Bashkirtseff. Their goals were to create a community to educate and support female artists and to display their work. They also founded and organized the annual Salon des Femmes as an exhibition of women's art exclusively. Additionally they campaigned for women's entry into the École des Beaux-Arts and for their eligibility to compete for the Prix de Rome art prize.]

Interestingly, Elizabeth Gardner was not a member of the Union, even though she waged many of the same battles in her own way. Her departure for Paris in the mid-sixties, her participation in a women's cooperative venture, her pursuit of subsidized training similar to that available to men, her return to Paris at the height of the Commune, and, later in life, her devotion to the war effort, are all actions that testify to her determination to function on par with men. 

Commentaries in her letters on the role of women and women artists are rare. Once example occurs in an account of the 1867 Exposition Universelle in Paris in which she describes Rosa Bonheur's entries: 

'Rose Bonheur must have some twenty pictures there, and Madam Browne has some more beautiful still. I feel glad that their work can stand by side of that of the other sex.'

Issues of women's rights are not discussed in her correspondence either. What preoccupies her thoughts is 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, and "Union of Women Painters and Sculptors," an article in Wikipedia.)