Sophie Gengembre Anderson
Encyclopedia
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood
The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was a group of English painters, poets, and critics, founded in 1848 by William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais and Dante Gabriel Rossetti...
movement.
Sophie was born in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, the daughter of Charles Gengembre, an architect, and his English wife. She had two brothers, Philip and Henry P. She was largely self-taught in art, but briefly studied portraiture
Portrait painting
Portrait painting is a genre in painting, where the intent is to depict the visual appearance of the subject. Beside human beings, animals, pets and even inanimate objects can be chosen as the subject for a portrait...
with Charles de Steuben
Charles de Steuben
Baron Charles Auguste Guillaume Steuben , also Charles de Steuben, was a French painter active during the Napoleonic Era.He briefly trained Gustave Courbet....
in Paris in 1843. The family left France for the United States to escape the 1848 revolution, first settling in Cincinnati
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
, Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
, then Manchester
Manchester, Pennsylvania
Manchester is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 2,763 at the 2010 census.-History:Settled in 1814, the village of Liverpool was incorporated in 1864 in the eastern section of Manchester Township...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, where she met and married British genre artist Walter Anderson.
In the USA, Anderson initially worked in portraiture, including work for the chromolithographers
Chromolithography
Chromolithography is a method for making multi-color prints. This type of color printing stemmed from the process of lithography, and it includes all types of lithography that are printed in color. When chromolithography is used to reproduce photographs, the term photochrom is frequently used...
Louis Prang & Co.
Louis Prang
Louis Prang was an American printer, lithographer and publisher. He is sometimes known as the "father of the American Christmas card".- Youth :...
In 1854 the Andersons moved to London, where Sophie exhibited her works at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
. They returned to New York in 1858, then settled in London again around 1863. In 1871, they moved to the island of Capri
Capri
Capri is an Italian island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrentine Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples, in the Campania region of Southern Italy...
for health reasons, but Sophie continued to send her work back to London for exhibitions. They returned permanently to England in 1894, settling in Falmouth
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
, Cornwall
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
.
Anderson's work was widely exhibited at venues including the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of British Artists
Royal Society of British Artists
The Royal Society of British Artists is a British art body established in 1823 as the Society of British Artists, as an alternative to the Royal Academy.-History:...
(RBA), the British Institution
British Institution
The British Institution was a private 19th-century society in London formed to exhibit the works of living and dead artists; it was also known as the Pall Mall Picture Galleries or the British Gallery...
, Grosvenor Gallery
Grosvenor Gallery
The Grosvenor Gallery was an art gallery in London founded in 1877 by Sir Coutts Lindsay and his wife Blanche. Its first directors were J. Comyns Carr and Charles Hallé...
(1878-87) and many regional galleries in England. She also exhibited in the USA at the Pittsburgh Artists Association and the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, New York. Her early works showed strong attention to botanical and other detail, in common with the Pre-Raphaelites.
She died at home in Falmouth
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
, Cornwall in 1903. Her husband Walter died in the same year. Her brother Henry P. Gengembre (b. 1825) was also an artist, active in Cincinnati in the early 1850s.
A world record price for her work of more than £1 million was achieved by No Walk Today at Sotheby's
Sotheby's
Sotheby's is the world's fourth oldest auction house in continuous operation.-History:The oldest auction house in operation is the Stockholms Auktionsverk founded in 1674, the second oldest is Göteborgs Auktionsverk founded in 1681 and third oldest being founded in 1731, all Swedish...
, London, in November 2008.
See also
- List of works by Sophie Anderson
Further reading
- Gaze, Delia (Ed.). Dictionary of women artists, Volume 1 (Routledge, 1997) pp. 186-187.
- Haverstock, M. S. et al. Artists in Ohio, 1787-1900: A Biographical Dictionary (Kent State University Press, 1999) p. 329.
- Vigué, Jordi. Great women masters of art (Watson-Guptill Pubs., 2003) p. 197 ff.
External links
- Anderson biography
- Anderson online (ArtCyclopedia)
- Paintings by Anderson (ArtMagick)
- Sophie Gengembre Anderson (The Famous Artists)
- Paintings by Anderson (yourstruli.com)