Me, Myself, and I

          Hello, my name is Berthe Morisot. I was born in Bourges, France on January 14, 1841 to Edmé-Tiburce Morisot and Marie Corneille Thomas.   My father was a high-ranking government official and my grandfather was Rococo painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard. I grew up with successful bourgeois family who encouraged me and my sister, Edma Morisot, in our exploration of art. At the age of 10, our family moved to Paris and Edme and I studied art at the Louvre Museum in the late 1850s under Joseph Guichard. My skills developed greatly under him but I grew dissatisfied under the teachings of Guichard. At the age of twenty, I went under the teachings of Camille Corot, one of the most important landscape painters of the time. My sister also attended to his lessons with me. Part of his teachings included summer-long painting trips to picturesque locales. Our parents also went along with us as they obviously would not let us travel alone. I worked with Corot for several years and showcased my art for the first time in the prestigious state-run art show, the Salon, in 1864.  I later became acquainted with Edouard Manet and became his pupil in 1868. His influence drew me away from classical art and into a new form of art that would come to be known as Impressionism. I soon eschewed the paintings of mu past with Corot, migrating instead toward Manet’s more unconventional and modern approach. I convinced Manet to attempt plein air painting, and drew him into the circle of acquaintance of the painters who became known as the impressionists. I was the first woman to join the circle of the French impressionist painters. Camille Pissarro and I together, were the only two painters who had pictures on all original Impressionist exhibitions.  However, Manet himself never considered himself an impressionist or agreed to show with the group. In 1874 I married Eugene Manet, Edouard's younger brother. The marriage provided me with social and financial stability while I continued to pursue my painting career. Able to dedicate myself wholly to my craft, I participated in the Impressionist exhibitions every year except 1877, when I was pregnant with my daughter. My daughter, Julie, was born in 1878.  I portrayed a wide range of subjects—from landscapes and still lifes to domestic scenes and portraits. I also experimented with numerous media, including oils, watercolors, pastels, and drawings. Most notable among my works during this period is Woman at Her Toilette (c. 1879). Later works were more studied and less spontaneous, such as The Cherry Tree (1891-92) and Girl with a Greyhound (1893).  After my husband died in 1892, I continued to paint, although I was never commercially successful during my lifetime. I did, however, outsell several of my fellow Impressionists, including Monet, Renoir, and Sisley. I had my first solo exhibition in 1892 and two years later the French government purchased my oil painting Young Woman in a Ball Gown. I contracted pneumonia and died on March 2, 1895, at age 54.