In the history of art, Louise Abbéma is one of the names that keeps being returned to.
The record lists Louise Abbéma as French painter, sculptor, and designer of the Belle Époque (1853-1927).
Louise Abbéma was born at Étampes in 1853. Her recorded nationality is France.
The nineteenth century broke the academy's authority: independent exhibitions, dealers and the beginnings of modernism.
She worked as painter, sculptor and printmaker.
Among her best-known works are Decorative panel (allegory of winter), Decorative panel (allegory of spring) and Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt. Looking is a skill, and the artists who last are those who taught their audience how to do it.
Recognition followed: Knight of the Legion of Honour and Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit (1900).
That the work was made in France shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Louise Abbéma died in 1927, aged 74. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
Achievements
- Knight of the Legion of Honour
- Knight of the Order of Agricultural Merit — 1900
- Notable work: Decorative panel (allegory of winter)
- Notable work: Decorative panel (allegory of spring)
- Notable work: Portrait of Sarah Bernhardt
