Rosa Bonheur was widely considered to be the most famous female painter during the nineteenth century. She was born in Bordeaux, France, in and was the oldest child of a family of artists. Bonheur had a difficult time learning to read, but her mother taught her how to read and write by asking her to draw a different animal for each letter of the alphabet.
This is what spurred her early love of animals and at the age of twelve she settled on being a painter with her father. By nineteen, Bonheur began to exhibit work and by the time she was thirty she could afford a chateau in Fontainebleau with the money she made from selling paintings.
At her chateau, she kept a menagerie of animals to draw from. In preparation for this work Bonheur went twice a week for a year and a half to the horse fair to sketch the horses and male horse handlers. In order to do this she applied for a special permit to disguise herself in male clothing, and cut her hair short. It was easier to be taken as a young lad.
She was the first female artist to be given this award. Rosa Bonheur lived with her first partner, Nathalie Micas C. She later began a relationship with the American painter Anna Elizabeth Klumpke Bonheur spoke about her personal life and her female partners openly and with great passion: this was groundbreaking at the time. She viewed men as stupid and mentioned that the only males she had time for were the bulls she painted. Bonheur's legacy paved the way for other lesbian artists who didn't favour the life society had laid out for them.
Take a close look at Rosa Bonheur's realistic drawing. Imagine you are holding a pencil in your hand. Follow the lines she has made in the air? Most of the landscape is missing in this drawing. Imagine the habitat this pony is living in. When Rosa was a little girl her mother taught her the letters of the alphabet by drawing an animal for each one. Pick three letters and draw animals for each of them: What animals will you choose?
