Sketchbook: Berthe Morisot

I’ve always been a fan of Berthe Morisot, one of the founding members of the Impressionists and an all-around inspiring woman. When I heard there would be an exhibit of her work at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, I immediately made plans to go. Morisot’s painting style always seems looser and fresher to me than her male colleagues. As a young person, Morisot studied with Camille Corot. She later met the painter Édouard Manet and joined the Parisian avant-garde. She married Manet’s brother, Eugene, who was also a painter (of lesser talent than his brother). In an unusual arrangement for the time, Eugene stopped painting to support Berthe in her painting career. As a working woman and mother, Morisot’s paintings were inspired by contemporary women of her time. Her daughter (& daughter’s caretakers) and fashionable Parisiennes were frequent subjects. The exhibit at the Barnes is now closed, but you can still see it when it travels to the Dallas Museum of Art (February 24-May 26, 2019) and the Musée D’Orsay in Paris June 18th-September 22, 2019). The sketch above is part of my ongoing looking at art series, observing museum and gallery visitors as they interact with art.