At the time of the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874, there was only one woman artist who was part of the new movement: Berthe Morisot (1841–1895). Three more were to join later: Eva Gonzalès possibly in the mid-1870s, Mary Cassatt in 1877, and Marie Bracquemond after 1887. There were others outside the core group too, but only Morisot was in the group from its formative years.

She was born into an affluent family with an artistic heritage: her mother was related to Fragonard (1732–1806), the Rococo painter, and ensured that Berthe and her two older sisters, Yves and Edma, received an art education. Berthe was introduced to the Louvre Gallery in 1857, and the following year started copying paintings there, where she made friends with Camille Corot and other artists. Corot encouraged her to work en plein air, and she studied under Oudinot, another of the Barbizon School.

Two landscapes of hers were accepted for the Salon of 1864, following which she exhibited quite regularly there until 1873, although she initially seems to have painted few in oils, such as this Study, the Water’s Edge (1864). This suggests her early oil paintings were relatively academic in style.

She is said to have been more comfortable making plein air sketches in watercolour, such as her Landscape from 1867, and working in pastels.

In 1868 Morisot modelled for and became friends with Édouard Manet, introducing him to plein air painting and influencing his style and composition.

Her older sister Edma, with whom she was particularly close, married in 1869, and moved to Cherbourg on the north French coast. During the summer of that year, the two sisters were together on the south coast of Brittany, where Berthe painted Edma beside The Harbor at Lorient (1869).

That same year, Berthe painted their double portrait as The Sisters. This is unusual for showing two painted fans, one open in the hands, the other on display in a frame behind them.

Morisot painted fine portraits, mainly of women, including The Pink Dress (Albertie-Marguerite Carré, later Madame Ferdinand-Henri Himmes, 1854–1935) from about 1870.

She continued to paint landscapes, including this unusual oil sketch View of Paris from the Trocadero (1871-73).

Morisot steadily made her mark painting themes for the other half of the population, who had for so long been largely ignored by male artists. The Cradle, painted in 1872, shows Edma and her young infant Blanche in a fashionable cradle. One of the nine paintings she exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibition two years later, it failed to receive the reception it deserved, and didn’t sell.

Morisot had been one of her brother-in-law Édouard Manet’s models for his famous painting of The Balcony in 1868-69. She painted her own Woman and Child on a Balcony in 1872, using the balcony primarily to combine full-length portraits of the two figures with an aerial landscape of Paris. On the skyline just to the left of the woman is the dark mass of Notre Dame.

That year the dealer Durand-Ruel, who sold most Impressionist works and was a key figure in the success of the movement, bought paintings from her, and she started to receive critical acclaim.

In 1873, she painted Reading or The Green Umbrella, which may have been another of her paintings exhibited the following year. It too features a painted fan, carefully opened and placed on the grass.

Morisot showed nine paintings at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874. In addition to The Cradle and Reading, these were:

• Hide and Seek (owned by Manet),
• Marine,
• Portrait of Miss MT (pastel),
• A Village (pastel),
• On the Cliff (watercolour),
• In the Wood (watercolour),
• an untitled watercolour.

She proved a particularly active member of the Impressionist group, helping to organise and taking part in all but one of their Exhibitions. The exhibition she missed was in 1878, when her daughter Julie was born.

That summer she holidayed by the sea, where she painted In a Villa at the Seaside (1874), presumably using members of her family as models. In December, she married Édouard Manet’s brother Eugène.

The Manets stayed in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, the following summer, where she painted many oil sketches of the yachts in the harbour, and this portrait of her husband Eugène Manet on Isle of Wight (1875).

Hanging the Laundry out to Dry (1875) shows a communal drying area at the edge of a town. The women have a large black cart which they use to transport the washing, and are busy putting it out on the lines to dry in the sunny spells. Next to that area is a small allotment in which a man is growing vegetables, and in the distance are the chimneys of the city.

Morisot’s style and brush strokes had loosened noticeably during the 1870s. In addition to her landscapes and portraits, she pioneered a new genre depicting intimate moments in everyday family life, in which her daughter was often included. However, her health suffered during the Franco-Prussian War and Commune of 1870-1, she aged prematurely, and died on 2 March 1895.

In 2013 she became the highest priced woman artist, when a portrait of hers sold for nearly $11 million.

References

Wikipedia

Hans Weevers’ page with a thorough literature survey.
The First Impressionist Exhibition (in Italian), containing
the exhibition catalogue

Adler K and Garb T (1987) Berthe Morisot, Phaidon. ISBN 0 7148 3479 3.
Mathieu M ed (2012) Berthe Morisot 1841-1895, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 18201 9.
Pfeiffer I and Hollein M eds (2008) Women Impressionists, Hatje Cantz. ISBN 978 3 7757 2079 3.