32 Facts About Berthe Morisot

In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris.

Berthe Morisot's work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the "rejected" Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley.

Berthe Morisot went on to participate in all but one of the following eight impressionist exhibitions, between 1874 and 1886.

Berthe Morisot was married to Eugene Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Edouard Manet.

Berthe Morisot was described by art critic Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Berthe Morisot was born 14 January 1841, in Bourges, France, into an affluent bourgeois family.

Berthe Morisot had two older sisters, Yves and Edma, plus a younger brother, Tiburce, born in 1848.

The family moved to Paris in 1852, when Berthe Morisot was a child.

Edma wholeheartedly supported Berthe Morisot's continued work and their families always remained close.

When Berthe Morisot expressed her interests in plein-air painting, Guichard sent her to follow Corot and Oudinot.

Berthe Morisot's reviving interest in drawing was motivated by her Impressionist friends, who are known for blurring forms.

Berthe Morisot put her emphasis on the clarification of the form and lines during this period.

Berthe Morisot adopted the style of placing objects away from the center of the composition from Japanese prints of the time.

Berthe Morisot started to use the technique of squaring and the medium of tracing paper to transcribe her drawing to the canvas exactly.

Berthe Morisot stressed the composition and the forms while her Impressionist brushstrokes still remained.

Berthe Morisot often worked in oil paint, watercolors, and pastel simultaneously, and sketched using various drawing media.

Berthe Morisot creates a sense of space and depth through the use of color.

Berthe Morisot typically made expansive use of white to create a sense of transparency, whether used as a pure white or mixed with other colors.

Berthe Morisot shared an interest in keeping a balance between the density of figures and the atmospheric traits of light with Renoir in her later works.

Berthe Morisot's works include landscapes, garden settings, boating scenes, and themes of boredom or ennui.

Later in her career Berthe Morisot worked with more ambitious themes, such as nudes.

Berthe Morisot continued to show regularly in the Salon, to generally favorable reviews, until 1873, the year before the First Impressionist Exhibition.

Berthe Morisot exhibited with the Impressionists from 1874 onwards, only missing the exhibition in 1879 due to illness when her daughter Julie was born at the end of 1878.

Berthe Morisot found an audience for her work with Durand-Ruel, the private dealer, who bought twenty-two paintings.

Berthe Morisot came from an eminent family, the daughter of a senior government official and the great-niece of Rococo artist Jean-Honore Fragonard.

Berthe Morisot met her longtime friend and colleague, Edouard Manet, in 1868 and married his brother, Eugene Manet, in 1874.

Berthe Morisot died on 2 March 1895, in Paris, of pneumonia contracted while attending to her daughter Julie's similar illness, thus making Julie an orphan at the age of 16.

Berthe Morisot achieved the two highest prices at a Hotel Drouot auction in 1875, the Interior sold for 480 francs, and her pastel On the Lawn sold for 320 francs.

Berthe Morisot's works averaged 250 francs, the best relative prices at the auction.

Berthe Morisot was portrayed by actress Marine Delterme in a 2012 French biographical TV film directed by Caroline Champetier.

Berthe Morisot was featured as the "A First Impressionist" in an article written by Anne Truitt in the New York Times on 3 June 1990.

In 2019, the Musee d'Orsay devoted a temporary exhibition to Berthe Morisot to pay tribute to her work.