Artist Review – Women’s Edition

Stephanie Ochoa, Staff Writer

Stephanie Ochoa

March 28, 2023

The Lodi Rampage admires all of the beautiful artwork created by Lodi High School. Every piece is as unique as the creative mind that brings it to life. This month’s Rampage Art feature takes a look into art created by women throughout history in honor of Women’s History Month!!

Artist 1

Name: Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a Mexican Painter well known for her portraits and self portraits. She was a well known female painter during the surrealism movement. Frida Kahlo acted as an important figure in art history and acted as an inspiration for women and all inspiring arts with disabilities. Frida was a woman who suffered many hardships throughout her life including having polio during her young life and suffering a critical damage from a car accident, suffering severe pelvic and spinal damage yet she still perceived as an artist and made her legacy.

One of her most well known pieces is known as “The Frame.” This piece is a self portrait that experimented with various mediums and is a painting of herself surrounded by vibrant colors and non-realistic birds with a more simplistic style. This piece was the first painting made by a 20th century Mexican artist to be purchased by an internationally renowned museum, the museum is known as the Louvre.

Artist 2

Name: Élizabeth Viggée Le Brun

Élizabeth Viggée Le Brun (1755-1842)was a French painter who is also known as Madame Le Brun that was a French portrait painter who. Her art style is thought to be a mix of Rococo and Neoclassical elements and she mainly painted women. Élizabeth Viggée Le Brun showed high artistic ability in her early life, however being a women, she had little access to formal training. Despite this, she rose up and became the status of a professional artist at the age of 19. However, it did not continue so smoothly for her, as in 1789 she fled to Italy with her younger daughter, abandoning her husband and home country. Despite the hardships she endured during this time, she still managed to maintain a prominent reputation in the art field and build her legacy as a strong female artist.

One of Élizabeth Viggée Le Brun most well know pieces is called “Self Portrait in a Straw Hat,” where Élizabeth Viggée Le Brun illustrates herself as a young beautiful artist with the use of various soft colors and realism with flawless blending maintaining a symmetrical look that touches up neoclassic elements that are included in her art.

Artist 3

Name: Sonia Delaunay

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979) was a French artist who was best remembered for her contribution to the Orphism movement which emphasized the use of strong colors and geometric shapes, as she is consider the co-founder of the movement itself. Sonia spend most of her life working as an artist in Paris and originally trained in the Russian Empire before moving to France and expanding her abilities as an artist. Sonia is also credited as the first living female artist to have a retrospective exhibition at the Louvre.

One of Sonia Delaunay’s most famous pieces is known as “Electric Prisms” which was inspired by a quilt pattern and is arranged with various geometric shapes, combining many existing art movements and styles such as cubism and futurism to form the art style the she named Orphism. This piece acted as an essential part of her life and the history of art as it was one of the very first pieces Sonia created under her personal style Orphism.

Sources

https://www.respectability.org/2018/06/frida-kahlo-lgbt-pride-month/#:~:text=Frida%20Kahlo%2C%20a%20Mexican%20woman,with%20disabilities%20and%20bisexual%20women

https://www.fridakahlo.org/self-portrait-the-frame.jsp  

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/international-womens-day-elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun 

https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/painting-of-the-week-elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun-self-portrait-in-a-straw-hat/ 

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/sonia-delaunay-993