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The Flemish Renaissance painter, Caterina van Hemessen (b.1528), created the first self-portrait of any artist (male or female) depicted working at an easel, along with brushes, palette and mahlstick. Her achievement is celebrated here with a slideshow comprised of twenty-two additional variations on the theme by women artists, and along with a breathtaking 1857 portrait by Edouard Louis Dubufe of Rosa Bonheur (on location with brush and portfolio), including a magnificent bull painted by Bonheur herself, symbolic of her work as a painter of animals or animalière.
Spanning more than four centuries and twelve different countries of origin, many of these works clearly show the easel, others simply suggest the fact by way of palette and brush, or the glance and position of the artist at work. Finally the last two, by Bridget Riley and Alice Neel, from the contemporary era beginning in the 1960s, demonstrate how the self image of women artists has continued to challenge and evolve.
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