Women artists
Unprecedented numbers of women became painters during the 1800's, but they rarely enjoyed the success and popularity of male artists. This inequality resulted from several factors. Women were not allowed into the best art schools, primarily because it was considered improper for women to study and paint a nude model. Thus, women lacked the necessary training to compete with men in the area most admired in the academic world, figurative and historical painting. This exclusion also kept women from making the political and social contacts necessary to succeed in the competitive art world.
Young female art students believed they lived in a promising period in spite of the many difficulties they were forced to overcome. Private coeducational art schools were common, as were schools for women only. But even these schools would not allow women to work from nude models until the turn of the century. The large national exhibitions exhibited many works by women, partly because entries were submitted anonymously. By the mid-1800's, women also began to hold their own private exhibitions. Prominent women artists of the 1800ís included the French painters Rosa Bonheur and Berthe Morisot, the English painters Emily Osborn and Elizabeth Thompson, and the American painter Mary Cassatt.
Excerpt adapted from the "Painting" article, The World Book Encyclopedia © 1999