As a Woman.

As a girl being born into a middle class family, one would have thought that her parents would discourage her from pursuing art, in a time where women hardly went into the profession of art. However, my parents were the opposite and encouraged me to start in art and introduced me into the environment.  My sister, Edma Morisot, and I did many things in our exploration of art and together we demonstrated the possibilities for women artists in avant-garde art movements at the end of the 19th century. We were one of the few women who engaged in this profession, and we demonstrated the potential of women in the arts in the late nineteenth century.

My dedication to the new style of painting known as Impressionism won me the disfavor of the traditional French academic artists. I believed that women had a special vision, "more delicate than that of men." My special touch is evident in the lighter colors and flowing brush strokes of Young Girl by the Window. Near the end of my life, I lamented the refusal of men to take my work seriously: "I don't think there has ever been a man who treated a woman as an equal, and that's all I would have asked, for I know I'm worth as much as they. 

Although I was not taken very seriously as a woman, much more as an artist, I have accomplished many artistic feats. I was the first woman to be included in the circle of Impressionists and developed my own unique Impressionist style. My work was shown in many of the Impressionist's exhibitions and I also was included in the Salon de Paris's exhibition.  I also outsold several of my fellow Impressionists, including Monet, Renoir, and Sisley. I had her first solo exhibition in 1892 and two years later the French government purchased my oil painting Young Woman in a Ball Gown. Today my paintings can sell for more than $4 million.