Katherine Keenum

A recent update from a correspondent who is doing research on Carolus-Duran led me to look over my collection of images by or about the artist. To my surprise, I saw that I have never posted this drawing of Carolus as a fencer. His swordsmanship made him dashing to his students—and to me!

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For the most part, I try to focus on lesser known women artists in this blog; but today my attention was caught by a man new to me, Norman Garstin. He studied with Carolus-Duran in Paris, painted in Brittany at about the same time  Read More 

When characters become a part of your life, associations continue to attract your attention even after a book is finished. I had an e-mail today from a friend who is spending the summer in Bandol, France. The Riviera now makes me think of Carolus-Duran and how much he loved the Mediterranean. He had a villa at Saint-Aygulf and donated two paintings to the local chapel. For more (in French), click here. Read More 

Blog tip: Sunday post at the always interesting Lines and Colors, sent me to Spanish painter Ramon Casas, who studied with
Carolus-Duran at about the  Read More 

Readers of this blog know that I'm always on the lookout for pictures that illustrate Where the Light Falls. Jeanette specially notices the size of Carolus-Duran's palette when she first see him painting Cornelia Renick's portrait—et voilà!

An important new show, Artist & Empire: Facing Britain’s Imperial Past, will be opening at the Tate Gallery in London on November 25, 2015. It features this painting by Elizabeth Butler among  Read More 

Pauline Marie Charlotte Croizette was an artist and the sister of actress Sophie Croizette. In 1868, Pauline met Carolus-Duran in the Louvre, where she was copying old masters, and married him that year. I love  Read More 

Ellen Day Hale's 1910 picture of a reclining woman with a guitar (taken here from a post at It’s About Time) can help me with the atmosphere of ANONYMITY in a way that photographs cannot. There’s something fresh and vivid  Read More 

When I was researching summer artists’ colonies and first saw those striped socks on Robert A. M. Stevenson in Will Hicok Low’s A Chronicle of Friendships p. 209, I badly wanted to base a character on him for one of the artists at Pont Aven.  Read More 

When Amy Richardson and Louise Steadman confront Jeanette with the need to choose between art and love, they remind her of Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot, whose opportunities to show were sadly curtailed by marriage. They also point out that Mary Cassatt knew better than to get married. For a well illustrated post on  Read More