Sunday, November 18, 2012

Portrait Exchange

Bertha Wegmann "Portrait of Jeanna Bauck"  1881  Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Swiss-Danish painter Bertha Wegmann (1847-1926) first met her close friend painter Jeanna Bauck when they were art students together in Munich. The couple moved together to Paris in 1881, where this painting was created, and Wegmann's career went from strength to strength: in 1881 and 1882 she exhibited at the Paris Salon, winning both an honorable mention for one painting and a medal for another. Not long after this she returned to Denmark where in 1883 she became the first woman ever to be elected to the Plenary Assembly of the Academy of Art.  She exhibited widely and was one of the first women to be awarded the gold medal of Ingenio et Arte,  the highest honor given to a Danish citizen by that nation's monarch.

Jeanna Bauck "The Danish Artist Bertha Wegmann Painting a Portrait"  late 1870s
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

There is not a lot of biographical information about Swedish-German painter Jeanna Bauck (1840-1926.) Listed as primarily a landscape painter, Bauck traveled extensively to the Alps, the Black Forest, and seaside in search of subject matter, but she was also known for her portraits, particularly of children.

4 comments:

Marianne said...

I really love how you can see the two distinct artistic personalities at work in these paintings!

Kate Stone said...

I adore this blog! I am always trying to collect images of artists at work in their studios. You can see what sort of lighting they had, how much space, how they set up the model...this site is great for that. And thanks for digging up some information about each artist too. I've just gone through the whole site.

Eliza Auth said...

These are marvelous! I hadn't known of Wegmann or Bauck before. I can't wait to see what else you uncover!

Emilie Nichols said...

I love this blog. It takes me to places I would never go on my own. The friendship of these two women interests me most. I especially love Bertha's portrait of Jeanna.