Happy Birthday Édouard Manet!

It’s Édouard Manet’s birthday - born on this day - January 23, 1832. To this day, Manet is still considered to be the father of modernism.

Édouard Manet -the eldest son of an official in the French Ministry of Justice- had early hopes of becoming a naval officer. After twice failing the training school's entrance exam, the teenager instead went to Paris to pursue a career in the arts. There he studied with Thomas Couture and diligently copied works at the Musée du Louvre.

The biennial (and later, annual) Parisian Salons were considered the most expedient way for an artist to make himself known to the public, and Manet submitted paintings to Salon juries throughout his career. In 1861, at the age of twenty-nine, he was awarded the Salon's honorable mention for The Spanish Singer.

Happy birthday Berthe Morisot!

Berthe Morisot was an essential figure in the Impressionist movement (a small group of inventive creators who organized independent exhibitions in protest against established art institutions in Paris).

Morisot’s paintings are visual poems.

Staying true to the tenets of impressionism, at first glance, you immediately notice her loose brushstrokes and colors that reflect the hues of nature.

Then, you realize later the absorbing quality of her work. Her paintings are hard to stop thinking about when you leave them.

Why?

Because Morisot had an understanding of women and their experiences that was uncommon for an artist at the time.

She painted women existing in their everyday lives in a way that was not present in the work of her male counterparts.

Rather than simply looking at these women, in Morisot’s work, you take time to think about what it’s like to be them and in their world. | National Gallery of Art

Erik Tryggelin | Impressionist / Genre painter

Erik Viktor Tryggelin (1878-1962) in Stockholm, was a Swedish artist, drawer and photographer.

Erik Tryggelin studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts (Konstakademien) in Stockholm. Then he studied in Paris for some time, during the period of October 1911 until January 1913.

In Paris he lived a normal artists' life with his Swedish fellows, for instance David Wallin (1876-1957), Svante Kede (1877-1955), Otto Strandman (1871-1970), Fritz Lindström (1874-1962) and Svante Nilsson (1869-1942).

In Paris he accompanied the art scene and he discovered modernism. In the springtime of 1912 he went to the gallery Bernheim-Jeune and saw the futurists. In 1906 Galerie Bernheim-Jeune was installed in 25, Boulevard de la Madeleine in Paris.

Mary Fairchild (1858-1946)

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low, born in New Haven, Connecticut was an American painter who specialized in landscapes, genre paintings, and portraits.

Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts (where she won a three years' scholarship), and in Paris at the Académie Julian and under Carolus Duran.

She had her own studio at 11 Impasse du Maine, (now part of Musée Bourdelle). She married Frederick MacMonnies in 1888 and divorced him in 1909. She married Will H. Low that same year.

Salon des Refusés (May 15, 1863)

Salon des Refusés is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.

Today by extension, salon des refusés refers to any exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show.

Among the exhibitors were Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Armand Guillaumin, Johan Jongkind, Henri Fantin-Latour, James Whistler and Édouard Manet, who exhibited his famous painting "Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe", officially regarded as a scandalous affront to taste.

Édouard Manet | Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, 1863 | Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Harriette Bowdoin | Impressionist painter

Harriette Bowdoin (1880-1947) è stata una pittrice ed illustratrice impressionista nata a South Hadley Falls, nel Massachusetts.

Bowdoin si trasferì a New York in giovane età per studiare con Henry Snell - un importante impressionista, ed Elliott Dangerfield - un paesaggista.

Bowdoin ha viaggiato e si è formata in Europa, dove ha stretto amicizia con l'artista americana Jane Peterson mentre entrambe studiavano con Frank Brangwyn a Londra.

Pete "The Street" Brown, 1967 | Urban plein-air painter

Peter first came to Bath for a year in 1986 to study an art foundation course.

He went on to graduate from Manchester Polytechnic remaining a further two years working in a studio in Ancoats, an area just north of the city centre.

He then studied a PGCE in FE in Eltham, London before giving up painting.

Returning to Bath in 1993, inspired by the architecture and life of the town, he started to draw in charcoal moving back to working in oils three years later. And it was on the streets of Bath Peter began to earn his living and it was here he earned the nick name 'Pete the Street'.

Peter paints a great deal across the UK - its cities, landscapes and coastline and in particular London.

Franz Skarbina | Impressionist painter

Franz Skarbina (1849-1910) was a German impressionist painter, draftsman, etcher and illustrator.

Born in Berlin, he was the son of a goldsmith from Zagreb. From 1865-1869, he studied at the Prussian Academy of Arts.

After graduation, he spent two years as a tutor to the daughters of Count Friedrich von Perponcher-Sedlnitzky (1821-1909), during which time he travelled to Dresden, Vienna, Venice, Munich, Nuremberg and Merano.

In 1877, he had acquired the funds to make a year-long study trip to the Netherlands, Belgium and France, where he came under the influence of impressionism.