Louise Abbéma (Étampes, 30 ottobre 1853 – Parigi, 10 luglio 1927) Painter, Sculptor, and Designer

Louise Abbéma

Louise Abbéma (Étampes, 30 ottobre 1853 – Parigi, 10 luglio 1927) è stata una pittrice francese.

Biografia

Pittrice "accademica" della Belle Époque, fu allieva di Charles Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner e di Carolus-Duran. Divenne famosa assai presto per aver ritratto Sarah Bernhardt ventiduenne, sua intima amica. In seguito espose le sue opere regolarmente al "Salone degli artisti francesi" sino al 1926. Nel 1881 ricevette dal "Salone" una Menzione d'onore e fu altresì decorata con la Legion d'Honneur nel 1906.
Lavorò anche per diverse riviste d'arte e illustrò "Il Mare" di René Maizeroy. All'inizio del nuovo secolo iniziò a frequentare il salotto di Madame Lemaire dove conobbe l'eccentrico dandy Robert de Montesquiou con il quale, forse, tentò di avere una relazione, nonostante avesse la fama di non nutrire particolare interesse per gli uomini.
È soprattutto nota per i suoi ritratti di dame dell'alta società. Il suo stile è del tutto convenzionale, ma assai piacevole e pacato. Louise Abbéma, peraltro, sembra non aver mai preso in considerazione nessuna delle grandi correnti innovatrici che caratterizzarono la sua epoca e che furono invece il fondamento dell'arte contemporanea.

Alcune opere

• Ritratto di Sarah Bernhardt (1876)
• Ritratto di Ferdinand de Lesseps
• Ritratto di Jeanne Samary (1880) (famosa attrice della "Comédie-Française" ritratta spesso da Renoir).
• Ritratto di Carolus-Duran
• Ritratto di Dom Pedro
• Ritratto di Charles Garnier
• Le stagioni (1883)
• Mattino d'aprile
• Nei fiori
• Flora

 

Sarah Bernhardt in 1875, portraied by her lover Louise Abbéma

Louise Abbéma (30 October 1853 – 10 July 1927) was a French painter, sculptor, and designer of the Belle Époque. 

Biography

Abbéma was born in Étampes, Essonne. She was born into a wealthy Parisian family, who were well connected in the local artistic community.  She began painting in her early teens, and studied under such notables of the period as Charles Joshua Chaplin, Jean-Jacques Henner and Carolus-Duran. She first received recognition for her work at age 23 when she painted a portrait of Sarah Bernhardt, her lifelong friend and possibly her lover.
She went on to paint portraits of other contemporary notables, and also painted panels and murals which adorned the Paris Town Hall, the Paris Opera House, numerous theatres including the "Theatre Sarah Bernhardt", and the "Palace of the Colonial Governor" at Dakar, Senegal. She had an academic and impressionistic style, painting with light and rapid brushstrokes.
She was a regular exhibitor at the Paris Salon, where she received an honorable mention for her panels in 1881. Abbéma was also among the female artists whose works were exhibited in the Women's Building at the 1893 World Columbian Exposition in Chicago. A bust Sarah Bernhardt sculpted of Abbéma was also exhibited at the exposition.
Abbéma specialized in oil portraits and watercolors, and many of her works showed the influence from Chinese and Japanese painters, as well as contemporary masters such as Édouard Manet. She frequently depicted flowers in her works. Among her best-known works are The Seasons, April Morning, Place de la Concorde, Among the Flowers, Winter, and portraits of actress Jeanne Samary, Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil, Ferdinand de Lesseps, and Charles Garnier.
Abbéma was also an accomplished printmaker, sculptor, and designer, as well as a writer who made regular contributions to the journals Gazette des Beaux-Arts and L'Art. She also illustrated several books, including la mer, René Maizeroy.
Among the many honors conferred upon Abbéma was Palme Academiques, 1887 and nomination as "Official Painter of the Third Republic." She was also awarded a bronze medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. In 1906 she was decorated as Chevalier of the Order of the Légion d'honneur.
Abbéma died in Paris in 1927. At the end of the 20th century, as contributions by women to the arts in past centuries received more critical and historical attention, her works have been enjoying a renewed popularity.

New Woman

As educational opportunities were made more available in the 19th-century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior, and to help overcome that stereotype women became "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer "New Woman". Artists then, "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives," including Abbéma who created androgynous self-portraits to "link intellectual life through emphasis on ocularity". Many other portraits included androgynously dressed women, and women participating in intellectual and other pastimes traditionally associated with men.

Self-Portrait (n.d., about 1895-1900) by Louise Abbéma

Louise Abbéma, née le 30 octobre 1853 à Étampes, et morte le 29 juillet 1927 à Paris, est une artiste peintre et sculptrice française, connue pour ses portraits mondains.

Biographie

Elle est la fille d'Henriette-Anne-Sophie d'Astoin (1826-1905) et du vicomte Emile-Léon Abbéma (1826-1915), administrateur de la compagnie du Chemin de Fer de Paris-Orléans, et chef de gare de la station d’Étampes.
Elle fut l'élève de Charles Chaplin, de Jean-Jacques Henner et de Carolus-Duran. Elle accède à la notoriété grâce à un portrait de Sarah Bernhardt, son amante, réalisé en 1875. Sarah Bernhardt a elle-même sculpté dans le marbre un buste de Louise Abbéma en 1878 (Paris, musée d'Orsay).
Elle expose régulièrement au Salon des artistes français jusqu’en 1926, où elle reçoit une mention honorable en 1881. Elle fait partie de la délégation de femmes françaises artistes présentées à l'Exposition universelle de 1893 à Chicago, regroupées dans le Woman's Building.
Elle est décorée de la Légion d'honneur en 1906. Elle fournit des dessins pour plusieurs revues d’art et illustre La Mer de René Maizeroy.
Au début du XX^e siècle, elle fréquente le salon de Madeleine Lemaire où elle rencontre Robert de Montesquiou, qui consacra un poème satirique à cette rencontre, Abîme.
Elle a un atelier de 1883 à 1908 au n^o 47 rue Laffitte à Paris.
Louise Abbéma repose à Paris au cimetière du Montparnasse.


Collections publiques

Aux États-Unis

• New Brunswick (New Jersey), Zimmerli Art Museum (en) : Sarah Bernhardt dans un jardin japonais, 1885, pastel, modèle d'éventail

En France

• Limoges, musée national de la porcelaine Adrien-Dubouché : Capucines, pastel
• Paris, ministère de la Défense : Roses blanches, ou Roses trémières blanches, huile sur tolile
• Paris, musée Carnavalet : Portrait de Jeanne Samary, 1880, huile sur toile
• Paris, musée d'Orsay :
  • Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), 1875, bas-relief en bronze
  • Portrait de Sarah Bernhardt, 1921, huile sur toile
  • Panneau décoratif : allégorie du Printemps, 1902, huile sur toile
  • Panneau décoratif : allégorie de l'Hiver, 1902-1906, huile sur toile
  • La Sorcière. Affiche pour le théâtre Sarah-Bernhardt, 1903, affiche en chromolithographie
• Pau, musée des beaux-arts : Le Déjeuner dans la serre, 1877, huile sur toile
• Redon, grande salle de l'hôtel de ville : Portrait d'Anne de Bretagne, panneau peint

Œuvres référencées

• Portait de Jules Clarétie,d' Alexandre Falguière, Léo Delibes paru dans deux numéros des Croquis contemporains en 1881
• Les quatre Saisons, Salon de 1882, quatre huiles sur toile, non localisée
• Portrait de M. Abbéma, au Salon de 1887
• Matin d’avril, Salon de 1894, huile sur toile, non localisée
• Dans les fleurs, Salon de 1893, huile sur toile, non localisée

Réception critique

Dans son ouvrage critique L’art moderne, Joris-Karl Huysmans écrit à propos des panneaux des Quatre Saisons, exposés au Salon de 1882 :

« […] Encore un peintre qui n'était pas le premier venu et qui s'effondre ! Nous allons pouvoir en dire autant de Mlle Abbéma qui tirait jadis de ses boîtes à couleurs de gais pétards. Les quatre saisons, représentées par quatre actrices, sont, comme concept, une niaiserie bien féminine, mais ce qui est pis encore, c'est l’exécution lâchée, l’impersonnalité de cette peinture molle et acide. »

 Louise Abbéma - A Game of Croquet 1872

 Il bel medaglione in bronzo dorato realizzato nel 1875 si trova oggi al Musée d'Orsay, a Parigi.

Self-portrait, age 18 (1876)

 A lady writing in her dairy, 1876

 Oil on Canvas 108.6 x 59.7 cm. (42.8 x 23.5 in.)

Sarah Bernhardt, Buste de Louise Abbema, 1878, marbre, Paris, musée d'Orsay

Jeanne Samary (1857-1890), sociétaire de la Comédie-Française

Louise Abbéma - Own work 1879

 La dame avec les fleurs. Signed Louise Abbéma and dated 1883, Oil on canvas, 97.8 x 130.3 cm

 Louise Abbéma - Sarah Bernhardt in a Japanese Garden 1885

Planche du livret explicatif du panorama le "Tout-Paris" peint par Charles Castellani et présenté lors de l'exposition universelle de 1889.

Louise Abbéma (1853-1927) "Dans les fleurs", dét. (1892) musée d'Étampes (Essonne, France)

 

La Comtesse de Martel dite Gyp , 1892

Oil on Canvas 7 x 80 cm. (2.8 x 31.5 in.)

Matin d'avril, Place de la Concorde, Paris (1894) Louise Abbéma

Abbema Louise,1894 - Adolphe Lalauze - aqua fortis (eau-forte) 

ABBEMA Louise,1894 - L'Elégante, Place de la Concorde à Paris (Carnavalet) - See Details' pictures (Détails – Particulari – Detalles) 

 Louise Abbema Portrait einer Dame 1895?

Louise Abbéma - Koller Auktionen

 Louise Abbéma, Portrait of a Young Girl with a Blue Ribbon, ca. 1895

 Abbema Louise,1896 - Chemin de Vemors - drawing (dessin, disegno - Musée, Roumanie)

Musique 

Louise Abbéma -  Art at the Salon Champs Élysées, 1897

 

A STILL LIFE OF FLOWERS IN A VASE , 1898

 Oil on Canvas 45 x 31 cm. (17.7 x 12.2 in.)

 

Madame Le Grand, 1899

Oil on Canvas 116 x 89 cm. (45.7 x 35 in.)

 Portrait of Madame B. (circa 1900)

 Au piano  circa 1900

Louise Abbéma 

 Louise Abbema, La Sorcière, poster per il teatro di Sarah Bernhardt, 1903

 

Portrait de fillette au chapeau , 1905

Oil on Canvas 54.6 x 45.7 cm. (21.5 x 18 in.)

 Louise Abbéma - Winter 
 1905 print after page of Women painters of the world, from the time of Caterina Vigri, 1413-1463, to Rosa Bonheur and the present day, by Walter Shaw Sparrow, The Art and Life Library, Hodder & Stoughton, 27 Paternoster Row, London

Abbema Louise,1906 - Léo Delibes - aqua fortis (eau-forte - Bnf, Paris)

 Portrait de Madame Carrie Wisler 

Louise Abbéma - Salon de 1908

Flora 1913

Louise Abbéma 

 

The beautiful equestrian , 1918

Oil on Canvas 65.4 x 54.6 cm. (25.7 x 21.5 in.)

 

A JAPANESE FLOWER ARRANGEMENT , 1920

 Oil on Canvas 55.9 x 45.7 cm. (22 x 18 in.)

 Louise Abbéma (1853-1927). Sarah Bernhardt  before 1927

 

Abbema Louise - Mme Brohan - wash drawing (lavis)

Data sconosciuta

 ritratto di Gentiluomo Parigino, Louise Abbema XX secolo 

Blond sourire

Oil on Panel 18.5 x 24 cm. (7.3 x 9.4 in.)

LOUISE ABBEMA (FRENCH, 1858-1927) Portrait of Madame Lucien Guitry

Louise Abbéma 1858 - 1927 , A Faithful Companion oil on canvas

 

 

An afternoon at the beach 

Watercolor
30.5 x 40.6 cm. (12 x 16 in.)

 

Portrait de Jean Marx, enfant

Pastel on Canvas 44 x 31.5 cm. (17.3 x 12.4 in.)

 

louise-abbéma-portrait-dune-femme-en-manteau-bleu 

 

 

 

Louise-Abbema-giapponese-con-farfalle 

Louise Abbéma (1859−1927)

  circa 1880

Ferdinand Mulnier - Corpus Etampois

MDLLE. ABBÉMA AT WORK ON HER SALON SUCCESS 1895

 

French painter Louise Abbéma (1853-1927). 

Agence de presse Meurisse - Bibliothèque nationale de France

1914

 French painter Louise Abbéma (1853-1927). 

Agence de presse Meurisse - Bibliothèque nationale de France

1914