Marie Bracquemond was a French painter, printmaker and designer. She was described in 1928 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt.
Background
Mrs. Bracquemond was born Marie Quivoron in Argenton-en-Landunvez, France, on December 1, 1840, to poor parents. Marie Bracquemond's father, who was a sea captain, died soon after her birth. Her mother, Aline Hyacinthe Marie Pasquiou, quite quickly remarried to Émile Langlois. The family then travelled throughout Europe for several years before they finally settled in Etampes, south of Paris. Marie Bracquemond's had one sister, called Louise. She was born in 1849 when her family lived near Ussel, department Corrèze in Limousin, in the ancient abbey Notre-Dame de Bonnaigue.
Education
Marie Bracquemond began to study painting with M. Wassor and often spent the summers painting in the countryside. In 1857, she made her first submission to the Salon, a drawing of her mother, her sister, and Wassor. Her confidence at a young age in her emerging talent was borne out by the acceptance of her work by the Salon. Through a friend of the family's, Marie was introduced to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and she has sometimes been characterized as a "student of Ingres." In fact, her letters indicate that while she admired Ingres' work, she found the man himself distasteful and did not pursue his instruction, nor follow his advice. It was her goal, she wrote, to "work at painting, not to paint some flowers, but to express those feelings that art inspires in me."
Career
Marie Bracquemond worked together with her husband, Félix Bracquemond, at the Haviland studio at Auteuil where her husband had become artistic director. She designed plates for dinner services and executed large Faience tile panels depicting the muses, which were shown at the Universal Exhibition of 1878. She began having paintings accepted for the Salon on a regular basis from 1864. Mrs. Bracquemond took part in the 1879 Impressionist exhibition, although the works she exhibited were drawn from her work in design for the Haviland studio. As she found the medium constraining, her husband's efforts to teach her etching were only a qualified success.
More representative of her style as an artist were the three paintings of hers included in the 1880 Impressionist exhibition, among them The Woman in White. This was a portrait of her sister Louise, her closest friend and staunchest supporter throughout her life.
Between 1887 and 1890, under the influence of the Impressionists, Bracquemond's style began to change. Her canvases grew larger and her colours intensified. She moved out of doors (part of a movement that came to be known as plein air), and to her husband's disgust, Monet and Degas became her mentors. She also exhibited at the 1886 Impressionist exhibition, perhaps her last concerted effort to advance her career in the face of her husband's growing disapproval.
She produced nine etchings that were shown at the second exhibition of the Society of Painter-Etchers at the Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1890. The same year, Marie Bracquemond, worn out by the continual household friction and discouraged by lack of interest in her work, abandoned her painting except for a few private works. She remained a staunch defender of Impressionism throughout her life, even when she was not actively painting.
Achievements
Mrs. Bracquemond is highly regarded today for her use of colour and texture. She’s recognised as being one of the first Impressionists who began painting outdoors (en plein air).
The retrospective exhibition of Marie Bracquemond's works took place in 1919 at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, it included 90 paintings (to a large extent small sketches), 34 watercolours and 9 engravings.
The Artist’s Son and Sister in the Garden at Sevres
Self-portrait
Iris in a vase
On the Terrace at Sèvres
Pots De Fleurs À Sèvres
Three ladies with parasol (aka Three Graces)
Aspasia
The Lady in white
Portrait of mademoiselle Charlotte du Val d'Ognes
Study for The Lady in white (drawing)
Melancholy
Louise Quivoron aka Woman in the garden
Le Gouter
Woman with an Umbrella
Under the Lamp
The Umbrellas
Portrait of Gustave Geffroy
Landscape in wintertime
Self-portrait
Felix Bracquemond in His Studio
Interior of a Salon
Landscape: Garden Path
Landscape Showing the Environs of Divonne
Mountain Landscape with Indians
Pierre Painting a Bouquet
Portrait of Louise
Portrait of Pierre Bracquemond
Small Landscape with House
Three Ladies with Umbrellas
View of the Garden
Woman's Head from the Right
Views
Quotations:
"Impressionism has produced... not only a new, but a very useful way of looking at things. It is as though all at once a window opens and the sun and air enter your house in torrents."
Connections
In 1869, Marie Bracquemond (then Quivoron) married Félix Bracquemond, a well known engraver and friend of the impressionists. The couple had a son, Pierre, in 1870, who would be taught to paint by his mother.
