Portraits of Women for a Rainy Day by Frenchman Louis Anquetin 1861–1932

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Femme au parapluie


Some folks have asked how I choose topics for the daily postings. Well, here goes. This morning I was listening to the weather forcaster announce that it would be raining all afternoon and throughout the night. And I began to think of umbrella paintings and remembered the colorful paintings of Louis Anquetin.

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Juliette 1890


Louis Anquetin was born in Étrépagny, France and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen. In 1882, he came to Paris and began studying art at Léon Bonnat's studio, where he met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The two artists later moved to the studio of Fernand Cormon, where they befriended Émile Bernard and Vincent van Gogh. Around 1887, Anquetin and Bernard developed a painting style that used flat regions of color and thick, black contour outlines.

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Woman with Umbrella 1890

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Woman Reading 1890

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) La Promenade 1892

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Portrait of a Lady

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) The Streets of Paris

Louis Anquetin (French artist, 1861–1932) Portrait of a Woman 1890

Reading, writing, & fishing with Armand Guillaumin 1841-1927

.1882 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) The Future Madame Guilaumin Reading

Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927), Impresssionist painter known for his intense colors, is most famous for his landscapes of Paris, Creuse, & Esterel areas.

1890 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin Sitting in a Garden

Born in Paris, into a working-class family from Moulins, he started to work at the age of 15, in his uncle's store in 1857, while attending evening art lessons.

1890 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Woman with Blue Cape and Scarf

In 1860, he began working on the Paris-Orleans railway line, drawing during his free time. He finally quit his job to begin attending the Academy Suisse, where he met lifelong friends Cezanne & Pissarro. He was not independently wealthy & his paintings did not sell as well as theirs.

1892 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin

After spending 2 years without working & selling few paintings, in 1868, he began working as a night employee in the highways department, while painting during the day.

Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guillaumin Fishing

At the beginning of the 1870s, he worked with Pissarro in Pontoise, a village of farmers hardly affected by industrialization, sharing Picasso's love for landscape painting & his bent for carefully constructed composition.

Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin

The artists often visited Paul Gachet in Auvers, a medical doctor practising in a working district in Paris, who was a socialist, a free-thinker, & a regular at the Café Guerbois, who supplied them with food & housing.

1894 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin Writing

With his friends, Guillaumin was one in the first group exhibition of the Impressionists in 1874, & exhibited his works in most of the ensuing Impressionist shows, as well as at the Salon des Refusés. His paintings still did not sell well enough for him to support himself.

Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin

In the mid-1880s he became a friend of Van Gogh, & some of his paintings were sold by Théo Van Gogh.


Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin

In 1886, he married his cousin Marie-Joséphine Charreton, a school teacher who supported him financially. From this point on, he painted more subjective portraits of his wife & daughter, in addition to his more typical landscapes.

1895 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin Reading

In the 1890s, he started using very expressive colors, anticipating the Fauves. Finally, in 1891, he won at the national lottery, which enabled him to concentrate on his painting & to move regularly between Agay, Crozant, & Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, as well as traveling to Holland in 1903-04.
1895 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guillaumin

Guillaumin died in 1927, at the age of 86, the last survivor of the Impressionists group.

1898 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin

1901 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) The Artist's Daughter Mademoiselle Guilaumin

1907 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) The Artist's Daughter Mademoiselle Guilaumin Reading

1889 Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Madame Guilaumin  Mother and Child

Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Marguerite Guillaumin Reading 1914


Armand Guillaumin (French Impressionist painter, 1841-1927) Self Portrait

Women Artists - Pre-Raphaelite

Marianne Stokes (Austrian born English painter, 1855–1927) Candlemas Day


Catherine (Madox Brown) Hueffer (1850-1927) At the Opera) 1869

The Pre-Raphaelite movement was a revolution in the art world during the 2nd half of the 19th-century in England.


Catherine (Madox Brown) Hueffer (1850-1927) Elsie Martindale Hueffer 1895


The members of the group, men & women, turned against what they perceived as the insipid, artificial artistic ideals of the day, instead portraying human earnestness & honesty in art.


Emma Sandys (1834-1877) Elaine, c. 1862-5. Elaine is a heroine of Tennyson's Arthurian poem Idylls of the King, where her love for Lancelot is unrequited.


The Pre-Raphaelites questioned the academic style dominating the art of the period, searching for a more original style in art prior to Raphael which they felt was less affected by trends of the academy.


Emma Sandys (1834-1877) The Garland 1870


They found their inspiration in medieval and early Renaissance art with its bright colors & clear outlines.


Emma Sandys (1834-1877) The Yellow Dress. The medieval background reflects a Flemish tapestry.


The figures in Pre-Raphaelite paintings –often women– give expression to intense feelings such as yearning, passion, or grief.


Emma Sandys (1834-1877) Viola 1870


Although the Pre-Raphaelites looked backwards in history for their subjects, they were also very modern in their approach.


Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872-1945) The Little Foot Page, 1905. The story of Burd Helen from Scottish balladry, who dressed as a boy page to follow her lover on foot, while he rode on horseback. They eventually had a child together and got married.


Their revolt against the established Victorian art scene can be compared with the radical movements in 20th-century modernism.


Joanna Boyce (1831-1861). Elgiva Joanna Boyce, Elgiva, an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman who was ruined by the powerful Archbishop Odo. Her marriage was forcibly dissolved, she was exciled to Ireland. 1855


The Pre-Raphaelites sought to give art a nobler & more morally serious purpose.


Kate Elizabeth Bunce (1856-1927) Melody or Musica c 1895


And so the Pre-Raphaelites sought to bring about a radical break with all the current conventions of the 2nd half of the 19th-century.


Joanna Boyce (1831-1861). Head of Mrs Edwards 1861


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) A Florentine Lily, representing the spirit of the City of Florence. c. 1885-90.


Marianne Preindelsberger Stokes (1855-1927) St. Elizabeth of Hungary Spinning for the Poor, 1895. St. Elizabeth of Hungary was a medieval noblewoman canonised in 1235.


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Beatrice


Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal (1829-1862) Lady Clare, 1857. Tennyson's Lady Clare, in which the heroine's natural mother begs her to conceal her humble origin, lest Lord Ronald withdraw his offer of marriage. Lady Clare refuses.

'I'm a beggar born,' she said,
'I will speak out, for I dare not lie.
Pull off, pull off the brooch of gold
And fling the diamond necklace by.'

'Nay now, my child,' said Alice the nurse,
'But keep the secret all ye can.'
She said, 'Not so; but I will know
If there be any faith in man."


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Cloister Lilies


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Madonna Pietra degli Scrovigni 1884


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Mariana


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Self-Portrait


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) The Lady Prays 1866


Marie Spartali Stillman (1844-1927) Woman with a Lute


Rebecca Solomon (1832-1886) The Wounded Dove. The the juxtaposition of a female figure in a domestic setting with a bird was a common theme at the time. 1866

Female Belgian Artist Andrée Bosquet 1900-1980

Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980)


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Self-Portrait


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) was a trained Belgian painter whose direct, delicate but elegant style has been compared to Florentine Primitives & self-taught “outsider” art.


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Self Portrait 1934


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Girl and Cat


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Ida


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Self- Portrait in White 1936


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Girl in a Blue Hat


Andrée Bosquet (1900-1980) Cecile 1976