Adélaide Labille-Guiard, Self-Portrait (c. 1775)- There's a prejudice that all artists come from artistic families, and not rarely these artists receive the initial training from their own parents. However, this wasn't the case with Adelaide Labille-Guiard (born in Paris, 11th April 1749 - 24th April 1803), for she was born into the family of a Parisian clothes salesman.
- At the age of 20, she married a financial clerk named Louis-Nicolas Guiard, but the marriage wasn't successful one, since in 1779 Adelaide was granted a legal separation from her already estranged husband. After a reformation of divorce laws, Adelaide was finally able to marry her former teacher later, François André Vincent, whom she lived happily with until her death.
- An early passion for art resulted in her commencing training as a miniaturist painter under the supervision of François-Elie Vincent, a Swiss miniaturist, and then studied pastels and portraiture with Maurice-Quentin de la Tour. That led to her exhibitions (1774-1783) at the Academy Saint-Luc, the Academy Royale, and the Salon de la Correspondance, mainly pastel portraits, often of leading members of each Academy like Joseph-Marie Vien.
Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Portrait of François André Vincent, (1795)
- In 1783 two great things happened in Adelaide's life: she opened her own studio and took on several female pupils, and was also granted a full membership of the Academy Royale with her contemporary Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun. Rumours were circulated that these two women artists were bitter foes, competitors for the same commissions, but in reality, this competition was a lie circulated by the academy's male members, terrified that these ladies may achieve greater recognition for their work than they would. They may also have feared her determination to see a change in their admissions policy: she dedicated her life to equal opportunities for women artists at the Academy Royale, and in 1785, Adelaide began to petition for a studio in the Palais du Louvre. In 1795, her request was granted; the officials objected to the her female pupils joining the male dominated art of the Louvre.
- Adelaide went from strength to strength as an exhibiting artist, and in 1787 became the official painter to Louis XVI's numerous aunts. In 1788 the future Louis XVII commissioned her to paint Reception of a Knight of St. Lazare by Monsieur, Grand Master of the Order; this was to be her only large scale piece, which was tragically destroyed in 1793 by the revolutionary forces, whose principles of "Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité" (Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood) obviously did not extend to great works of art. All that remains of this today is an oil sketch in the Legion D' Honneur in Pairs.
Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Mme Louise-Elisabeth with her two year old son, (1788)
- Her fortunes could have been very different after her aristocratic clients had met their end beneath the guillotine, but Adelaide instead painted the leaders of the revolution, most notably Alexandre de Bauharnais and Maximillien Robespierre.
Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Maximilien de Robespierre (pastel), 1786- These portraits all have a sense of restraint, of calm, created through her skilful blending of pastel. Backgrounds were usually painted to match the colour of the sitters clothes, creating a wonderfully dream like ambience, making even the most martial of subjects seem gentle and thoughtful. This lightness of touch and command of technique was nowhere more evident than in her portraits of women, where the pattern in lace, the texture of silk and velvet, and the softness of hair is apparent.
- While not as famous as other female artists of her time, or as popular, I truly admire her for fighting for equal rights, against discrimination that shouldn't even have taken place in the art world; her competence in passing the knowledge of her artistic skills to others, and for her obvious intelligence, adaptability to the new social climate derived from the change of political regimes in those turbulent times for France.
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