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From Both Sides of the Easel: Women as Both Artists and Models in the 19th Century
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Kromm, Jane
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Spring 2025
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2025
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This thesis explores the interesting and complex dual identities of four 19th-century women, Victorine Meurent, Suzanne Valadon, Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt, who navigated the art world as both models and artists. With the odds against them due to exclusion from formal art academies and societal constraints shaped by class and gender, these women created distinct and unique paths into the art world. For Meurent and Valadon, modeling became an economic necessity, while providing a rare entry point into artistic practice and networks otherwise closed to lower-class women. In contrast, Morisot and Cassatt, both from upper-class families, had access to more social connections and private instruction to establish themselves as artists, with only smaller associations as models. Through a comparative lens, this study examines how these women engaged with and challenged pre-conceptional narratives in order to achieve their successes as artists. Their contributions not only helped reshape the perception of women in the arts but also highlighted the barriers of class and gender that continue to inform artistic discourse today.
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