Artist Birthdays for January, February and March

Posted by Meg Nola Mar 6, 2009

Catching up with the monthly artists’ birthdays — which I seem to have lost track of since December — for January, Berthe Morisot (January 14, 1841) and Édouard Manet (January 23, 1832) shared the same month. Morisot was one of the French Impressionists, and though Manet had a strong influence on the Impressionists and socialized with them, he really never fully committed himself to their group. Manet and Morisot were friends, however, with Manet advising Morisot on painting and life and often including her in his own work. Berthe Morisot even married Manet’s brother Eugene in 1874.

February belongs to Horace Pippin (February 22, 1888-1946), a hard-working and self-taught African-American painter born in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Pippin came from a poor background yet persisted in pursuing his artistic dream, even after experiencing a near-devastating injury to his right arm during World War I. While the war was a great trial to Pippin, he also noted how the intensity of battle and being pushed to the edge of life "brought out all the art in me...I can never forget suffering and I will never forget sunsets. So I came home with all of it in my mind and I paint from it today."

March 12, 1918 was the birthday of Elaine Fried de Kooning, a vivacious and talented abstract painter married to modern art icon Willem. March 14, 1923 brought photographer Diane Arbus into being, her camera lens and mind fusing to create unusually compelling portraits. And March 16, 1822 was painter Rosa Bonheur’s birthday, Bonheur’s most famous work being The Horse Fair. She was a fine artist in the "animalière" or painting of animals tradition, and an otherwise 19th century free-spirit who wore trousers, smoked cigarettes and did not care to be physically and emotionally corseted. ** March is incidentally National Women’s History Month, which is a great time to focus on the accomplishments and lives of female artists — and then to appreciate them for the rest of the year as well.

Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding. (Diane Arbus, 1923-1971)