21 Aug Painter Mary Ann Alabaster
One of the most important traditions among women painters is the self-portrait in which the artist claims her status as an artist. This is a 19th century English example, by the painter Mary Ann Alabaster, who shows you herself painting a portrait of herself (a self-portrait within a self-portrait) surrounded by her works in different genres.
Interestingly, it was not Alabaster’s father who stood in the way of her career as an artist, but her mother, so Alabaster had to overcome the female equivalent of Jewish antisemitism. It is typical of the woman painter’s self-portrait that she shows herself using the tools of her trade, in this case a measuring rod, and also a guitar and music, to show the breadth of her artistic culture. Learn more >> bit.ly/2kMS8Rx
