Marie Bashkirtseff
| Marie Bashkirtseff | |
|---|---|
Marie Bashkirtseff, 1878
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| Born |
24 November 1858 Gavrontsi, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) |
| Died | 31 October 1884 (aged 25). Paris, France |
| Citizenship | Russian Empire |
| Occupation | Diarist, painter, sculptor |
Marie Bashkirtseff (Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva; Russian: Мари́я Константи́новна Башки́рцева, Ukrainian: Марі́я Костянти́нівна Башки́рцева; 24 November 1858 – 31 October 1884) was a Ukrainian diarist, painter, and sculptor.
Bashkirtseff was born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva in Gavrontsi near Poltava to a wealthy noble family, but her parents separated when she was quite young. As a result, she grew up mostly abroad, traveling with her mother throughout most of Europe, with longer spells in Germany and on the Riviera, until the family settled in Paris. Educated privately and with early musical talent, she lost her chance at a career as a singer when illness destroyed her voice. She then determined on becoming an artist, and she studied painting in France at the Robert-Fleury studio and at the Académie Julian. The Académie, as one of the few establishments that accepted female students, attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States. Fellow students at the Académie included Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowiczowa and especially Louise Breslau, whom Bashkirtseff viewed as her only real rival. Bashkirtseff would go on to produce a remarkable, if fairly conventional, body of work in her short lifetime, exhibiting at the Paris Salon as early as 1880 and every year thereafter until her death (except 1883). In 1884, she exhibited a portrait of Paris slum children entitled The Meeting and a pastel portrait of her cousin, for which she received an honorable mention.
Bashkirtseff's best-known works are The Meeting (now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris) and In the Studio, (shown here) a portrait of her fellow artists at work. Although a large number of Bashkirtseff's works were destroyed by the Nazis during World War II, at least 60 survive. In 2000, a U.S. touring exhibition entitled "Overcoming All the Obstacles: The Women of Academy Julian" featured works by Bashkirtseff and her schoolmates.
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