Curator’s Opening Talk: A Belle Époque? American Women Artists and France, 1871–1914

The end of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 ushered in La Belle Époque, decades of peace in an era of dramatic social and political change. Thousands of artists flocked to Paris to take advantage of its famous École des Beaux-Arts and indulge in its café society. Among them were women artists. The experience of American women painters in France was different from that of their male colleagues. Deemed unsuitable for study of the nude male model, they were prohibited from entering the government-sanctioned school until 1897, nor could they mingle with their male colleagues in lodgings and cafés. And yet they persisted. This talk considers the experience of American women artists in France in “this transitional age in art.”