Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot was a French painter and founding member of the Impressionist group, the only woman to exhibit in its first exhibition in 1874, and a participant in every subsequent group show through 1886 except 1879, which she missed for the birth of her daughter. She first showed at the official Salon in 1864 and continued there through 1874, after which she committed to the independent Impressionist exhibitions instead. Her work is distinguished by very light, rapid brushwork worked simultaneously in oil, watercolor and pastel, and she is especially known for intimate domestic scenes of women, children and family life, treating modern bourgeois femininity as serious Impressionist subject matter rather than minor genre painting; a Le Temps critic in 1877 called her the one real Impressionist in the group. She married Eugene Manet, brother of Edouard Manet, and is now recognized as one of the movement's most technically radical members despite receiving less contemporary and posthumous recognition than Monet, Renoir or Degas.