Laura Junger
Berthe Morisot
Born 1841 in Bourges
Died 1895 in Paris
Morisot was one of the most important women artists of the 19th century, a period in which women were denied an institutional artistic education. Unlike her friend and mentor Édouard Manet, she also painted in the open air.
Morisot came from an art-minded family. Beginning in 1860, she took lessons in plein air painting from Camille Corot. Her encounter with the sculptress Adèle Colonna in 1864 strengthened her resolve to pursue a career in the male-dominated art world. The same year, she exhibited for the first time at the official Salon.
In 1868 she met Éduard Manet, who depicted her in numerous portraits. She married Manet’s brother Eugène in 1874, and their soirées were attended by writers and artists including Monet and Renoir. The year 1874 also saw her participation in the first Impressionist exhibition. At the first auction of Impressionist works at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris in 1875, her paintings fetched higher prices than those of her male colleagues.
Morisot in the collection
Berthe Morisot is represented with one work in the Hasso Plattner Collection, on view in the Museum Barberini as a permanent loan from the Hasso Plattner Foundation. With over a hundred paintings of French Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, including masterpieces by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Gustave Caillebotte, and Paul Signac, the museum in Potsdam is one of the most important centers of Impressionist landscape painting in the world.
