16 May – 13 October 2024
We've lent our Louise Jopling portrait sketch to the Tate Britain's 'Now You See Us' exhibition.
Louise Jopling’s portraits commanded prices that few, if any, other British female artists achieved. Leighton, Burne-Jones and Tissot were her friends, as were Whistler and Millais, both of whom painted her portrait. She was known for her quick sketches from single sittings, which she painted throughout her career; a review in The Graphic of the 1886 Society of Lady Artists (founded as The Society of Female Artists in 1857, becoming ‘Lady’ in 1869 and ‘Women’ in 1890) exhibition mentions a ‘female head of great beauty’ that was ‘painted in one sitting by Mrs. Louise Jopling’. It is possible that the sitter here was one of Jopling’s students - or possibly her niece, the daughter of her sister Marie Cockell.
Born Louise Goode, she exhibited under her married names; as Mrs Romer, she had accompanied her husband to Paris when he was was appointed private secretary to Baron Rothschild in 1865. The Baroness discovered her talent and advised her to take lessons with M. Chaplin. The year after her husband’s death in 1873 she married another artist to become Mrs Jopling. In this marriage she was the primary earner, which she found a heavy responsibility, necessitating constant production, regular sales and a continual search for commissions and clients. In 1879, despite her own illness and that of her son Percy, she produced eighteen pictures.
In 1887 after the death of her second husband she became Mrs Rowe, but continued to exhibit as Mrs Jopling, the name under which she had achieved recognition. In 1901 she became the first woman to be elected to the Royal Society of British Artists.
She kept a fashionable Chelsea studio, designed by Burges, in which artists and actors mingled. It was at her house that, in response to a witticism of Whistler’s, Oscar Wilde remarked, ‘How I wish I had said that’ and Whistler replied, ‘You will, Oscar, you will’. She was an early supporter of women’s rights and established her own school for female painters.
Spanning 400 years, this exhibition follows women on their journeys to becoming professional artists. From Tudor times to the First World War, artists such as Mary Beale, Angelica Kauffman, Elizabeth Butler and Laura Knight paved a new artistic path for generations of women. They challenged what it meant to be a working woman of the time by going against society’s expectations – having commercial careers as artists and taking part in public exhibitions.
Including over 150 works, the show dismantles stereotypes surrounding women artists in history, who were often thought of as amateurs. Determined to succeed and refusing to be boxed in, they daringly painted what were usually thought to be subjects for male artists: history pieces, battle scenes and the nude.
The exhibition sheds light on how these artists championed equal access to art training and academy membership, breaking boundaries and overcoming many obstacles to establish what it meant to be a woman in the art world.