Rosalie (Rosa) Marie Bonheur
(1822 - 1899) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
Rosalie (Rosa) Marie Bonheur |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
Bordeaux, France |
| Nationality: |
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| Birth: |
1822 |
| Death: |
1899 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
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| Medium: |
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| Method: |
Oil on canvas |
| Style: |
Realism |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
Sculpture
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Biography
Rosa Bonheur was born in Bordeaux. Her first teachers were her parents: her mother, who would die before Bonheur was twelve, taught her to read, write, draw and play the piano. Her father, Raymond Bonheur who was landscape artist of some note himself, continued her artistic education. He was also to play a major role in shaping her feminist and radical ideas regarding androgyny and clothing. She herself was frequently dressed in men's clothes and maintained what John Saslow, in his article on Bonheur, termed a proto-lesbian identity. Her works are mainly of animals. She maintained her own menagerie of animals and honed her animal anatomy skills by visiting slaughter houses.By the age of thirty, Bonheur was already a critical success.She became the first woman ever to win the Legion of Honor.Her spectacular works such as the Horse Fair and Ploughing in the Ninernais were all based on life drawings. Bonheur was in many ways a woman much ahead of her times: besides wearing pants, she cut her hair short, smoked, and rode astride when it was considered more appropriate for womwen to ride side-saddle. At a time when most women were financially dependent, Bonheur earned her own living and became wealthy enough to own a chateau in Fontainebleu. Bonheuer never married but lived with two women successively. Her first live-in companion was the artist Nathalie Micas. After Micas died in 1889, Bonheur's second companion was the American artist Anna Klumpke who survived Bonheur.
References:
Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-Portraits by Frances Borzello, pp.114;. Rosa Bonheur: A Life and an Legend by Dore Ashton and Denise Browne Hare; Women Artists: An Illustrated History by Nancy G. Heller, pp.90-91; Rosa Bonher sa vie, son oeuvre by Anna Klumpke; Disagreeably Hidden: Construction and Constriction of the Lesbian Body in Rosa Bonheur's Horse Fair in The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History, by John Saslow, pp. 187-205.
Rosa Bonheur
French, 1822-1899
"At one time Rosa Bonheur had a complete menagerie in her home: a lion and lioness, a stag, a wild sheep, a gazelle, horses, etc. One of her pets was a young lion whom she allowed to run about and often romped with.... I was easier in mind when this leonine pet gave up the ghost."(1) So wrote a close friend of Rosa Bonheur in recalling the artist's passion for animals. The artist received special dispensation from the police to wear trousers and a smock to visit butcher shops and slaughterhouses. It was in these gritty locales that she closely studied animal anatomy. Bonheur also wore her hair short, rode astride, smoked cigarettes in public, and achieved a successful career as an animalier, demonstrating her independent spirit.
Born in Bordeaux, Rosa Bonheur received her training from her father who was a minor landscape painter. In 1829 she moved with her family to Paris. While unconventional in her ambitions and personal conduct, Bonheur was traditional in her working method. She studied her subjects carefully and produced many preparatory sketches before she applied paint to canvas. Bonheur's reputation grew steadily in the 1840s; she regularly exhibited her animal paintings and sculptures at the Paris Salon from 1841 to 1853. The Salon favored traditional work, and most artists sought to exhibit at the annual shows as it was the primary way for their work to be publicly seen.
The government of the Second Republic awarded Bonheur a commission. The resulting painting, Plowing in Nivernais, exhibited at the Salon of 1849, firmly established the artist's career. In 1853 she won international acclaim with her monumental painting The Horse Fair (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) which was exhibited in England and which Queen Victoria greatly admired.
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Samples of Work
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