Berthe Morisot

"Of the six Impressionists whose first group exhibition in 1874 so scandalized and fascinated Paris, Berthe Morisot was the only woman. During her lifetime she produced a large body of work and won the highest acclaim from her peers. Today her paintings hang in major museums, and interest in her work and her life continues to grow. Morisot is important not only as an innovative painter but because she triumphed over the conventions and restraints her society placed upon women. Hers is the story of a women artist who adroitly combined the highest professional achievement with a deeply rewarding emotional life as a wife and mother. Anne Higonnet's biography, which draws on the artist's unpublished letters and diaries, made available by Morisot's heirs, is further enriched by her own scholarship and sympathy with Morisot. The author describes Morisot's early training and troubled relationship with her sister, also a painter, that would sustain Morisot throughout her life. We read of her early encounters with the brightest young artists in Paris: She became a confidante of the ashing sculptress Marcello, muse to Édouard Manet and, later, fiend of Mary Cassatt. Higonnet describes the united front formed by Morisot, Monet, Degas, Sisley, Renoir, and Pissarro to challenge the artistic establishment and considers the conflicts that spun them apart. Most revealing is the delicate balance Morisot wrought between motherhood and marriage to Eugène Manet, Édouard's brother, and her life's work. In Berthe Morisot Anne Higonnet brings fully to life an accomplished artist and her world. This remarkable woman's story is also a vivid portrayal of feminine culture in the late nineteenth century, and of the Impressionist movement from its earliest experiments to its resplendent maturity." --