Rosa Bonheur: The Artist's (Auto)biography

"Loved this!" according to Ginger Haycox. I'm sure other book reviewers or critics would work at judging this book on the common merits most books arebut I loved the intimacy of this book. It wasn't written by a "writer", a 'person writing a book'. It was written on a much more personal level and it discusses the challenges of not just the ordinary woman of that era but the self sufficient, independent woman who also happens to be a cross dresser and lesbian. A challenge that even today meets with ignorance and prejudice.I really. A very interesting read. Mark A. Kirkham I've read this book a number of times using the one at our public library. It is no longer available so I bought this book for my personal library. As a volunteer I lead tours at a local art museum and since Rosa Bonheur's lifestyle in the 19th century would have been what we today consider that of a lesbian I occasionally reread it before leading a group which I know will include lesbians. Our local art museum has both a Bonheur oil painting and a bronze sculpture as well which I incorpo. If you like reading about women artists you will love this book! An excellent book on Rosa Bonheur. If you are interested in art and/or art by women you will enjoy it.I have read it and re-read it several times.

In the illuminating introduction to her translation of this 1908 biography by Bonheur's lover, van Slyke argues that Bonheur's life merits a closer look, particularly as seen through Klumpke's eyes. Copyright 1997 Cahners Business Information, Inc.. The book gets bogged down in mundane details, and art historians who want critical context are best advised to turn to Dore Ashton's 1981 Rosa Bonheur: A Life and a Legend. Drawing on her own meticulous journal entries as well as Bonheur's letters, sketches and diaries, Klumpke traces Bonheur's trailblazing life and recounts how she met Bonheur, fell in love and becam

To the horror and bewilderment of many, she earned her own money, managed her own property, wore trousers, hunted, smoked, and lived in retreat with female companions in a little chateau near Fountainebleau named The Domain of Perfect Affection.Rosa Bonheur: The Artist's (Auto)Biography brings this extraordinary woman to life in a unique blend of biography and autobiography. Coupling her own memories with Bonheur's first-person account, Anna Klumpke, a young American artist who was Bonheur's lover and chosen portraitist, recounts how she came to meet and fall in love with Bonheur. Bonheur's account of her own life story, set nicely within Klumpke's narrative, sheds light on such topics as gender formation, institutional changes in the art world, governmental intervention in the arts, the social and legal regulation of dress codes, and the perceived transgressive nature of female sexual companionship in a