Berthe Morisot

Alongside Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot deservedly shares the title of ‘greatest Female Impressionist’. After studying landscape painting with Corot for several years, she exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1864, aged only 23. After meeting Édouard Manet in 1868, and subsequently falling in with Impressionist painters such as Degas and Bazille, her work would develop in a less traditional direction. The interaction between her and Manet was two-way; she encouraged him to paint en plein air and use a more modern, colorful palette. The security that came from her marriage to Manet’s younger brother allowed her to experiment with portraits, still lifes, landscapes and domestic interiors. She ended up exhibiting in all but one of the eight Impressionist Exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. Her first solo show came in 1892. When she died of pneumonia at the age of 54, Morisot had left an indelible mark on modern French painting.