Eva Gonzalès

Portrait of Eva Gonzalès, 1869-1870, by Édouard Manet. The painting she is shown completing here demonstrates the mastery she had achieved at that age. However, this depiction of Gonzales is less than flattering in that her dress, her posture and technique are not actually those of a professional to painting. The painting that Gonzales is working on is not her own, but actually one of Manet's. It is currently on display at the National Gallery in London.

Eva Gonzalès (April 19, 1849 – May 6, 1883) was a French Impressionist painter.

Eva Gonzalès was born in Paris into the family of the writer Emmanuel Gonzalèz. In 1865, she began her professional training and took lessons in drawing from the society portraitist Charles Chaplin.

Gonzalès became a pupil of the artist Édouard Manet in February 1869. Manet is said to have begun a portrait of her at once which was completed on 12 March 1870 and exhibited at Salon in that year.

Like her teacher, Édouard Manet, she never exhibited with the Impressionist painters in their controversial exhibitions in Paris, but she is considered part of the group because of her painting style. She was Manet's only formal student and modeled frequently for several members of the Impressionist school.

Until 1872, she was strongly influenced by Manet but later developed her own, more personal style.

During the Franco-Prussian War she evacuated to Dieppe.

She married Henri Guérard, brother of the graphic artist Henri Guérard, and used him and her sister Jeanne Gonzales as the subjects for many of her paintings.

Her work was exhibited at the offices of the art review L'Art in 1882 and at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1883. Her career was cut short when she died in childbirth at the age of thirty-four, exactly six days after the death of her teacher, Manet.

In 1885, after her death a retrospective of 88 works was held at the Salons de La Vie Moderne.

Gallery

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  Plage de Dieppe vue depuis la falaise Ouest, Château-Musée, Dieppe, France 1871

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  Enfant de troupe, Musée Gaston Rapin, Villeneuve-sur-Lot, France, 1870

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  The Donkey Ride, City Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, England 1880

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  Afternoon Tea or On the Terrace, Private Collection 1875

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  An actress with a mask, Private Collection

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  L'Avant Port (Dieppe), Private Collection

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  L'Indolence, Private Collection 1871-72

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  La Toilette, Private Collection 1879

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  La jeune élève (Portrait of Sister as Artist), Private Collection 1871-72

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  Le petit lever, Private Collection 1875

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  Morning Awakening, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen, Germany 1876

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  Nounou avec enfant, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. 1877-78

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  Portrait of Jeanne Gonzales in Profile, Private Collection

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  Portrait of a Woman in White, Private Collection 1879

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  Reading in the Forest, Musée du Petit Palais, Paris 1880

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  Roses dans un verre, Private Collection 1880-82

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  Secretly, Private Collection 1877-78

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  The Milliner, The Art Institute of Chicago c.1877

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  Une loge aux Italiens, Musée d'Orsay, Paris 1874

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  White Shoes, Private Collection 1879-80

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  Woman in White, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. 1879

Further reading

• Marie-Caroline Sainsaulieu, Jacques de Mons: Eva Gonzalès: 1849 - 1883; étude critique et catalogue raisonné . Paris 1990
• Marianne Delafond: Les femmes impressionnistes: Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Berthe Morisot. Paris 1993 ISBN 2-85047-227-1

References

• National Gallery London. Notes. Accessed February 2009
• Olga's Gallery Notes. Accessed February 2009
• Spaightwood galleries Biography. Accessed February 2009