Properzia de' Rossi

• Louisa Ignacia Roldán, known to the art world as Spain's first female sculptor of the Baroque era, was born in Seville in 1656 (died in 1704) as the third daughter of the famous sculptor Piedro Roldán. The entire Roldán family assisted in the production of their father's sculptures, but only Louisa had the gift, the skill, the insight to become a sculptor in her own right, and to be receive credit for her assistance under the name "La Roldána".

• This talent, this flair for sculpture, made Louisa the only person truly worthy of inheriting her father's sculpting dynasty. But this was not to be, as in 1671, she married Luis Antonio Navarro De Los Arcos against the wishes of her parents. A sculptor and artist himself, Luis was responsible for painting Louisa's sculptures in their rich, vibrant hues.

• Her marriage led to her becoming an independent sculptor, and in 1686 she moved with Luis to Cadiz. Here she was commissioned to create a number of sculptures by the Cathedral Chapter house, which included the figures of six Angels, seven different Virtues, and four Prophets. Just one year later, in 1687, the city of Cadiz requested that La Roldána sculpt two statues of the patron saints of Cadiz, Saint Germanus and Saint Servandus; these statues had been designed by her father, but the sculpting and painting of them was done by Louisa and Luis.

Louisa Ignacia Roldán, Saint Ginés de la Jara (polychromed wood with glass eyes), (c.1692)

• In 1688 they moved again, this time to the capital city of Madrid. Here Louisa petitioned King Charles II for the position of Court Sculptor, and was finally granted this in 1692. Sadly, Louisa was to receive no pay for this 'privilege', but was given in that year a commission to sculpt a statue of Saint Michael for the monastery of the Escurial; this was to be one of her finest works, with St Michael standing on the twisted naked body of Satan, his cloak flowing around him, arm raised and ready to strike his foe, a look of sadness on his face, of pity for his fallen enemy. This was her first work to be signed La Roldána, a title she only used after being appointed Court Sculptor.

• The lack of a salary from the court proved difficult for her though, and in 1697 she wrote twice to the Queen pleading for either clothing or a small amount of money to purchase food with; this was a bad time to be requesting assistance however, as Spain was suffering a severe economic crisis, and even the royal court was struggling to feed and clothe itself.

Louisa Ignacia Roldán, Rest on the Flight into Egypt (terracotta), (c.1680-1700)

• La Roldána passed through this bad time, and in 1701 she was re-affirmed as Court Sculptor when Philip V took the throne, despite the negative comments of the Marquez De Villafranca, who described her terracotta works as superb, but her wooden works as 'lacking distinction' and being 'very ordinary'. Her terracotta groups were unfairly criticised, in my opinion, and she submitted many to the king. Two of these, The mystical marriage of Saint Catherine and The death of Saint Mary Magdalene were sculptures of such beauty, and such rich colour, that they would only be matched when the secrets of sculpting and glazing in porcelain were perfected over 100 years later.

Louisa Ignacia Roldán, The Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine

• The baroque nature of her work, with its ornate decoration and bright colours, was ahead of its time, but La Roldána had no direct followers while she lived. She was, however, a huge influence on many of Madrids 18^th century sculptors.

Louisa Ignacia Roldán, Death of Mary Magdalene (terracotta), (c. 1675-1700)

• She left behind a legacy of emotive, flamboyant sculpture, virtually created the ornamental figurine as we know it today, and acted as an independent woman in a society where that was almost an act of heresy.

Adelaide Labille-Guiard

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, 11^th April 1749 - 24^th 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.

Maria Martinez

Maria Martinez with her pottery

• I've always admired the various Native American tribes and been intrigued with their tremendous spirituality and unique philosophy regarding life; and although generally aware of the so-called Pre-Columbian art, I wasn't really acquainted with any individual artist until now.

• Maria Martinez (born in San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico, c. 1884 – died in 1980) was born into a community where pottery was a way of life, where the women of the village made pots using the simple coil method.

• They educated her in working with clay, while more mundane education was given at St. Catherine's Indian School in New Mexico. There she also met her future husband, Julian Martinez, whom she married in 1904 and formed a partnership to make pottery.

• The Blackware pottery which Maria became famous for, was a traditional Indian pottery style, but one of which very few examples existed from earlier times. When her husband was working at an archaeological dig under Dr Edgar Lee Hewett (1907-1910), he discovered a broken piece of Indian pottery, presented it to Maria and asked if she could reconstruct it in the traditional Blackware. This led to the refinement and development of this traditional technique by Maria and her family, and also their famed black on black decoration style.

• Sadly, Maria's husband had a severe alcohol problem, which ultimately led to his death in 1943. However, this unfortunate event didn't stop the pottery production, since her four sons, their wives, and eventually their grandchildren, all worked in pottery.

• It wasn't just her family that benefited from the success of the Martinez pottery either; Maria was wealthy by the standards of the Pueblo, and she shared this wealth and fame unselfishly with the entire community.

• The proof of her recognition outside her community was the invitation to the White House in Washington D.C., where Eleonor Roosevelt praised her and made her realise their awareness regarding her great contribution to the art world; her great importance in the revival of the fine pottery traditions of the Pueblo people, for which she received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Colorado and the American Ceramics society. She also toured America extensively, demonstrating Pueblo pottery techniques and decoration at universities, schools, and many World's Fairs.

• The Blackware style used by Martinez required a complex technique and a great effort to get right. On the finished product, the painted design appears in a matte grey-to-black against the shiny black of the polished surface, and it may be either a negative or positive one, in usually geometric style - polished black bear claw shapes contrast with curving lines and repeated patterns of small dots, cactus leaf shapes are framed in circles, while mountain peaks rise next to them from the equator of the pot. Maria truly loved keeping this artistic tradition of her people alive and her legacy to her family was the precious gift of making the pottery, which she considered priceless.

Maria and Julian Martinez, Blackware Jar, (c.1920)

• And this is the legacy Maria Antonia Montoya Martinez leaves us with: success in a society where native people (and especially their women) were seen as fit only to labour for their 'superiors'; keeping an ancient tradition alive; producing beautiful works of art; and improving the lives of those around her, rather than keeping her wealth simply to make her own life comfortable.

Rachel Ruysch

• The Netherlands in the 17^th century was the home of many gifted realist artists, but one of them intrigued me with the chosen subject of her paintings – flowers. Rachel Ruysch (born in Amsterdam, 3^rd June 1664 – died in Amsterdam, 12^th August 1750) was a Dutch baroque painter specialised in still-life paintings of flowers, the love for which she received from her father, Frederik Ruysch, a Professor of anatomy and botany.

Rachel Ruysch, Still-Life with Bouquet of Flowers and Plums

• She displayed artistic talent at an early age, and at 15 she was sent to study with Willem van Aelst, a famous Delft flower painter, from whom she learnt his asymmetric spiralling compositional style which she refined and made her own, and by 18 had produced a number of still-lives of plants and animals in woodland settings.

• It is believed her realist portrayal of animals and insects is due to her fathers collection of plant and animal specimens, which she studied in depth when painting. A deep knowledge of botany and zoology is evident in all her meticulous works, perhaps more so than any other painter of the Flemish movement. She also began to teach her sister to paint, but it seems that she lacked Rachel's natural talent, and only a copy of Abraham Mignons 'Woodland Scene with a Squirrel' is recorded as being her sister's work.

• As well as her commitment to her art, Rachel Ruysch was also committed to her family: in 1693 she married Juriaen Pool, a portrait painter, with whom she had 10 children, which didn't prevent Ruysch from painting extensively.

• She was introduced into the painters' guild in The Hague, and several years later, a summons to the court of Elector Palatine in Düsseldorf, Johann Wilhelm was received, and she and her husband spent the period from 1708-1716 as his court painters, returning to Holland when prince died.

• Ruysch kept painting until her death, leaving us with a considerable number of beautiful paintings which have never been subject to the changing fashions of the art world; demand for Ruysch's work was, and still is, high.

• When looking at her work, it is easy to see why she has remained popular. In Still Life of Flowers from 1689 her delicate brushwork captures the different textures of flower petals; her subtle and natural use of light creates depth and a feeling that the blooms can be picked from the canvas; and her almost photographic rendering of a Dragonfly and Butterfly resting on the flowers makes you feel that if you move too suddenly, they will take flight away from you. What also makes her paintings so attractive, and so remarkable for the age, are their informal composition, as well as the baroque lighting, with almost suffocating dark background and brightly lit foreground. When looked at alongside the works of Clara Peeters and other flower painters of the 17^th century, Rachel's paintings did not restrict themselves with small, symmetrical arrangements of flowers; she painted them as they grew, as they would look in the world of her audience, as living things with their own character.
  

Rachel Ruysch, Still Life of Flowers, (1689)

• It is this appreciation and understanding of the flow of the natural world that makes Rachel Ruysch a truly great artist, and it was her balancing of her duties as a wife and mother with the demands of her profession that made her a truly great female artist.

Mary Beale

• The first professional female English portraitist of the Baroque era was Mary Beale (born in Barrow, Suffolk, 26^th March 1633 – died in London 1699) who produced numerous portraits of her family, important clergymen, as well as self-portraits, using a variety of media - oils, pastels and watercolours. Now, I must say that being introduced to her biography, I became more impressed with her husband, even though she was a true pioneer of her time in many ways.

• She was introduced to the art world by her father, a Puritan clergyman called John Cradock, who was also an amateur painter (and member of the Painter-Stainers' Company), just like her husband, a cloth merchant from London called Charles Beale. Through her father's connections, Mary got acquainted with an English politicians portrait painter, Robert Walker, from whom she received training, and started working as a professional painter in the 1650s.

• After the period of financial crisis and the Great Plague, which the family spent in Allbrook, Hampshire, she established a studio in Pall Mall in London where her husband worked as her studio assistant and accountant. Mary became a successful and recognised artist, witnessed by the circle of her friends with pr ominent reputation, such as: the poet Samuel Woodford, the Archbishop of Canterbury John Tillotson and Bishops Edward Stillingfleet and Gilbert Burnet, as well as the Court Artist to Charles II, Peter Lely, whose art she was profoundly influenced by.

Mary Beale, Portrait of Mary Moll Davis, (1675)

• She was the mother of three sons (her first-born, Bartholomew, died) who were also artistically gifted, but only her third child, Charles, became a professional artist, specialising mainly in miniatures. Her second child, Bar tholomew, practised painting before committing himself to medicine. Mary was also trying to pass her artistic knowledge on to others, and one of her students, Sarah Cuties, became a well-known painter.

• In her Self-portrait from about 1685, Mary boldly presents herself as a working woman (with a palette hung in the background) and as a mother (holding the painting with her two portrayed sons), clearly aware of her significance and self-importance for both the period and social circumstances in which she lived.

Mary Beale, Self-portrait (c. 1685)

• Beside preparing canvases and mixing paint, her husband kept the records of her busy working life, often addressing her as the “Dearest Heart”. Charles' notebooks are a precious source, proof of her well-established “business” (as well as the art climate of London of the 17^th century), for she wasn't too interested in innovations of hers and art in general, being more mentally aware that she was known as a copyist and was in great demand at the time.

• The number of commissions decreased, especially after the death of Lely, and Mary turned to painting intimate studies and portraits of her family members. These quite reasonably differ to the more official portraits of her clientèle, and therefore, more importantly in my opinion; are more subjective, displaying the span of her intimate emotions through the paintbrush, as all true art should aim to.

Upper: Mary Beale, Portrait of Charles Beale, (c.1675)
Mary Beale, Portrait of the Artist's Son Bartholomew Beale, (c.1665)

Gabriele Münter

Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, 1905

• There were many romantic relationships between artists in art history, and they are mostly described in a manner where men are the famous ones, the initiators, the inventors, while female artists are simply their followers, their pale shadows. The true influence of females in such relationships are hard to determine sometimes, and there is always controversy involved, as in the case of Gabriele Münter and her tutor and lover Wassily Kandinsky.

• Gabriele (born in Berlin, 19th February 1877 - died in Murnau am Staffelsee, 19th May 1962) was a German expressionist painter prevented from attending state art academies because of her gender, so she therefore went to the Damen Kunstschule (Art School for Ladies) in Düsseldorf. Being quite unsatisfied with the scarce training, and being pushed by her ambitions to become more than an art teacher, she entered the newly opened Phalanx School under Wassily Kandinsky.

• Gabriele studied sculpture, printmaking and painting there and became intimately involved with her mentor, with whom she travelled to Holland, Italy and France. She met important artists of the period like Henri Rousseau and Henri Matisse, who influenced her work, becoming less Impressionist in spirit and more akin to Fauvism and later Expressionism. She also began painting glass in 1909, introducing this unusual medium, which would later also be appealing to Kandinsky, Franz Marc, August Macke, Heinrich Campendonk, etc.

Gabriele Münter, Kandinsky and Erma Bossi at the Table in the Murnau House (oil on canvas), 1912

• Unlike Kandinsky's “abstract pursuits”, Gabriele's art remained rooted in the figurative world, even though stripped to the basics in its stylization.

Gabriele Münter, Portrait of Wassily Kandinsky (colour woodcut), 1906

• Gabriele was a member and co-founder of the Neue Künstlervereinigung (New Artists' Association) and Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) (1911-1914).

• During WWI after seeking refuge in Switzerland, the couple went their separate ways. During WWII Gabriele hid works of the Expressionists from the Nazis, who generally considered modern art as 'degenerate'.

• Gabriele Münter made no theoretical claims for helping with the establishment of the Expressionist style, and therefore her exact role is rather vague; however, that fact tells me of her greatness both as a human being and as an artist, for art shouldn't be somebody's property, but a source of enjoyment for both the creator and the observer.

Gabriele Münter, Staffelsee in Autumn (oil on board), 1923