Overview
Born in Bordeaux, France, Rosa Bonheur went on to become one of the most renowned animal painters in history.
Her earliest training was from her father, the landscape painter Raymond Bonheur. He encouraged his daughter’s interest in animals as well as in art, and let her keep many pets in their home, including a sheep that’s said to have lived on the balcony of their Parisian apartment.
Bonheur was a conscientious, hard-working artist, committed to direct observation from nature. As an adult she sometimes visited the slaughterhouse to study animal anatomy. She preferred to wear men’s clothes for this, and had to get official authorization from the police to dress in trousers and a smock. (This wasn’t the only way in which Bonheur rejected a traditionally feminine image. She smoked cigarettes in public, rode astride, and wore her hair short.)
In the 1840s, Bonheur’s artistic reputation in her home country grew steadily. She exhibited regularly and won prizes for her work. International acclaim came in the 1950s, and by the 1860s and 1870s most of her sales were in England, rather than France. In 1894 she became the first woman to receive France’s highest order: the Grand Cross of the French Legion of Honor.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database.