Berthe Morisot

Today Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) is considered a major Impressionist artist, a recent development despite the respect received in her lifetime from peers Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. As the only female member of the Impressionist group at its founding in late 1873, Morisot played a major and multifaceted part in the movement, and her works were prized by pioneering dealers and collectors. Lush illustrations from throughout Morisot's career depict her daring experimentations and her embrace of modern subjects in the city and at the seaside: fashionable young women, and intimate, domestic interiors. Texts examine her in the context of her contemporaries, the critical reception of her work, the subjects and settings she chose, and the state of Morisot scholarship. It makes an important contribution to the field, with never-before-published letters, interdisciplinary scholarship, and a specific focus on Morisot's pioneering developments as a painter first, woman second.

Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) was the most celebrated and well connected European woman painter of her time. This selected correspondence reveals a highly intelligent woman, filled with self-doubt, berated by her mother for her "selfishness, '' yet persisting in her total immersion in her art. Close friends with Manet, Degas and Mallarme, Morisot married Manet's brother and shared ideas with colleagues who included Cassatt, Monet, Renoir and Pissarro. The letters, edited by Morisot's grandson, were first published in England in 1957.