Women Artists in France, 1770-1914
Online
Dr Lois Oliver
10 pre-recorded lectures and 5 live Zoom seminars over 5 weeks at 18:30, and where necessary, also at 20:00 [London time], from Wednesday 5 November to Wednesday 3 December 2025
£395
Please note that booking for this course will open in mid-July 2025.
Course description
Women artists in France created astonishingly rich oeuvres, despite considerable professional obstacles. Excluded from the official École des Beaux-Arts until 1897, they also faced prejudice from art critics and dealers who regarded genius as a male attribute.
This course offers the opportunity to explore the achievements of a range of extraordinary individuals. They include the rival portraitists Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, whose glittering careers at the royal court were interrupted by the 1789 Revolution but who subsequently reinvented themselves; animal painter Rosa Bonheur, famed across Europe and America, who became the first woman to be awarded the Légion d’honneur; Impressionist innovators Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt; and an artist who defied all convention, the model-turned-artist Suzanne Valadon.
While the geographical focus is France, the cast of artists is international. We shall explore the achievements of Americans in Paris, attracted by tuition at the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi, and the numerous Nordic visitors who not only studied in the capital but also visited artist colonies on the coast, establishing links with similar communities in Scandinavia.
The course combines in-depth lectures on individual artists and groups of artists with thematic sessions on topics such as artistic training; exhibition opportunities; the (often gendered) language of art criticism; artists as models; and self-representation.
Lecturer's biography
Dr Lois Oliver is Professor in History of Art at the University of Notre Dame in London, Lecturer at Boston University London, and a Visiting Lecturer at The Courtauld. She has worked as a Curator at the V&A, the National Gallery, and the Royal Academy. Her recent exhibitions include ‘Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first major UK exhibition of Morisot’s work since 1950, and ‘Jock McFadyen: Tourist without a Guidebook’ for the Royal Academy. She is currently working on a new exhibition project ‘Edouard Manet & Music’ for the Royal Academy. Lois studied English Literature at Cambridge University, and History of Art at The Courtauld, completing an MA in Venetian Renaissance Art and writing her PhD thesis on The Image of the Artist, Paris 1815-1855.