Luise Begas-Parmentier (1843–1920) was an Austrian-German landscape and

architecture painter Architectural painting (also Architecture painting) is a form of genre painting where the predominant focus lies on architecture, including both outdoor and interior views. While architecture was present in many of the earliest paintings and illumi ...

and Salonière.

Life and work

Begas-Parmentier née Parmentier was born on 15 April 1843 in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. Following the example of her sister , she decided to become an artist. She received her first training with the landscape painter Emil Jakob Schindler and the etcher

William Unger William Unger, or Wilhelm Unger (11 September 1837, Hanover – 5 March 1932, Innsbruck) was a German etcher and engraver. Biography His father was the jurist and art historian, . While he was still a toddler, his family moved to Göttingen. ...

. By the age of twenty-two, she was exhibiting her works on rural themes at the Vienna Künstlerhaus. Around 1875, she began a series of study trips to Italy, focusing on Venice. After 1876, her Italian-themed paintings were a regular sight in exhibitions at the

Academy of Arts, Berlin The Academy of Arts (german: Akademie der Künste) is a state arts institution in Berlin, Germany. The task of the Academy is to promote art, as well as to advise and support the states of Germany. The Academy's predecessor organization was fo ...

. In 1877 she married her fellow painter

Adalbert Begas Adalbert Franz Eugen Begas (8 March 1836, Berlin – 21 January 1888, Nervi) was a German painter. Life He was the third son of painter Carl Joseph Begas. Because of his drawing skills, his father encouraged him to become an engraver and sent hi ...

, who was fifteen years her senior and an equally fervent admirer of Italy. The couple moved into a luxurious house with a studio south of the Tiergarten in Berlin, where she created fans with

Romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

motifs of flowers or Italian vines, as well as the usual canvas paintings, according to the current fashions. They also took repeated "study-trips" to Italy, especially Sicily,

Capri Capri ( , ; ; ) is an island located in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the Sorrento Peninsula, on the south side of the Gulf of Naples in the Campania region of Italy. The main town of Capri that is located on the island shares the name. It has bee ...

and Venice. On one of these trips in 1888, Adalbert died of a lung ailment. She continued to travel and exhibit widely, however. Begas-Parmentier exhibited her work at the Woman's Building at the 1893

World's Columbian Exposition The World's Columbian Exposition (also known as the Chicago World's Fair) was a world's fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. The centerpiece of the Fair, h ...

in Chicago, Illinois. For several years, she served on the board of the ''Verein der Berliner Künstlerinnen'', an artists' association for promoting art by women, who were not able to attend the official academies until 1919. In addition to her artistic activities, her home was famous as a literary salon. In 1900, the magazine ''Daheim'' stated, "She is one of the most popular and most honored phenomena of the Berlin artistic world; the center of a fine intellectual, casual, artistic sociability". Among the prominent people who were regular guests, one may mention

Isadora Duncan Angela Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877 or May 27, 1878 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer and choreographer, who was a pioneer of modern contemporary dance, who performed to great acclaim throughout Europe and the US. Born and raised in ...

, Tilla Durieux, Samuel Fischer,

Alfred Kerr Alfred Kerr (''né'' Kempner; 25 December 1867 – 12 October 1948, surname: ) was an influential German theatre critic and essayist of Jewish descent, nicknamed the ''Kulturpapst'' ("Culture Pope"). Biography Youth Kerr was born in Breslau, ...

, Ernst von Wildenbruch and

Harry Graf Kessler Harry Clemens Ulrich Graf von Kessler (23 May 1868 – 30 November 1937) was an Anglo-German count, diplomat, writer, and patron of modern art. English translations of his diaries "Journey to the Abyss" (2011) and "Berlin in Lights" (1971) reve ...

Begas-Parmentier died on 11 February 1920 in

Berlin Berlin is Capital of Germany, the capital and largest city of Germany, both by area and List of cities in Germany by population, by population. Its more than 3.85 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European U ...

, Germany.

References

External links

ArtNet: More paintings by Begas-Parmentier

@ Navigare/HvH {{DEFAULTSORT:Begas-Parmentier, Luise 1843 births 1920 deaths 19th-century German painters Austrian women painters German women painters Artists from Vienna 20th-century German painters Artists from Berlin 19th-century Austrian painters 20th-century Austrian painters 20th-century German women artists 19th-century German women artists