Do You Know Who I Am?
Having attending art school, one would think that I would know Sarah Peale (1800-1885) long before I stumbled across her doing research into women artists. A prominent artist in her time, she was the first women to be accepted into Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Why had her work not been pointed out before now? Were her peaches not just as good (or better) than Cezanne’s? Recently, I watched “The Impressionist,” a series on Knowledge Network. The hour was spent studying Monet, Cezanne, and Seurat with a splashing of Van Gogh. Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) was only as a model for some of the major artists of her time including Renoir, Degas, and Picasso. They showed her dressed in formal gowns and nude. Not once did the narrator mention she was also a formidable Impressionist painter.
This series brings into sharp focus that women work at their art. I have appropriated the images of two artists (so far), “Sarah Peales’ Still Life with Peaches” and “Suzanne Valadon’s Catherine Nue Allongée Sur Une Peau De Panthère” (executed in my own painting style) to deliver their work into contemporary society to be reconsidered. allows the viewer to rethink their assumptions about women who paint.
This series brings into sharp focus that women work at their art. I have appropriated the images of two artists (so far), “Sarah Peales’ Still Life with Peaches” and “Suzanne Valadon’s Catherine Nue Allongée Sur Une Peau De Panthère” (executed in my own painting style) to deliver their work into contemporary society to be reconsidered. allows the viewer to rethink their assumptions about women who paint.
