Symposium
Unknown, Rosa Bonheur and her lioness Fatma, ca. 1855, By-Thomery, Rosa Bonheur’s castle
Rosa Bonheur worked her way up to become the leading animal artist of her day. She built her life and work around animals, surrounding herself with them and even creating a sizeable menagerie. This proximity, as well as her many travels, allowed her to study them in depth. She was committed to the causes of animal welfare and animal protection, as well as to protecting the Fontainebleau forest.
R. Bonheur’s career and engagement act as a starting point for a reflection on artists’ attitudes towards animals in the period that spends from the Grammont law (1850) to the wake of World War I. The complex relationships between artists and animals, whether domesticated, livestock or wild, will be addressed. The symposium will explore the themes of animal companionship, care and protection, but also appropriation in the context of imperialism and colonialism. Whether painted, sculpted, engraved, drawn, lithographed, photographed or even filmed, these works will equally interrogate the place and representation of women artists in animal art and scientific professions alike during this period.
Practical information
Tuesday 10 January 2023, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Musée d’Orsay
Auditorium
Wednesday 11 January 2023, from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
62 Rue des Archives, 75003 Paris
Auditorium
Programme
Tue. 10 January 2023
Musée d’Orsay, Auditorium
Musée d’Orsay, Auditorium
10:00 am
Leïla Jarbouai, musée d’Orsay, and Sandra Buratti-Hasan, musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, curators of the exhibition Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899)
Leïla Jarbouai, musée d’Orsay, and Sandra Buratti-Hasan, musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux, curators of the exhibition Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899)
Welcome
10:10 am
Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac (Professor of Art History at Sciences Po; President of the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, Paris)
Laurence Bertrand-Dorléac (Professor of Art History at Sciences Po; President of the Fondation nationale des sciences politiques, Paris)
Introduction
10:30 am - 12:45 pm
Moderator: Anaïs Roesch (AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, Paris)
Moderator: Anaïs Roesch (AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions, Paris)
1st Session: Animal art, a gendered practice ?
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10:30 am | Caroline Culp (Vassar College, New York) – Behemoth Bovines: Art and Economy in the 19th Century Paintings of Caroline Clowe
11:00 am | Clémence Rinaldi (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) – Animal painters and sculptors in women’s exhibitions at the end of the 19th century [French]
11:30 am | Break
11:45 am | Annemarie Bilclough (Victoria and Albert Museum, London) – Beatrix Potter: Drawn to Nature
12:15 pm | Anna Orton-Hatzis (City University of New York) – Immortalizing Extinct Cape Lions and Endangered Barbary Lions: Investigating the Nineteenth Century Discourse on Extinction in Rosa Bonheur’s Lion Painting*
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12:45 -2:00 pm
Lunch break
2:00 -4:45 pm
Moderator: Armelle Fémelat (Université de Tours/CNRS)
Moderator: Armelle Fémelat (Université de Tours/CNRS)
2nd Session: Taxidermists, tamers, documentarians, hunters: beyond painting, appropriations and representations of women in animal professions
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2:00 pm | Francesca Posca (Université Bordeaux-Montaigne) –Live animals. Julie Charpentier (1770-1845), sculptor and zoology instructor at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris [French]
2:30 pm | Erin Corrales-Diaz (Toledo Museum of Art) – Uncanny Nature: Gender and the American Taxidermy Movement
3:00 pm | Vanessa Bateman (Université de Maastricht) – Martha Maxwell, Rosa Bonheur and Women Working Across the Boundaries of Art and Science, Domestic and Wild
3:30 pm | Break
3:45 pm | Zoé Marty (musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole) – Profession(s): painter, sculptor, tamer and huntress [French]
4:15 pm | Thierry Laugée (Nantes Université) – Osa Johnson, a heroine for an animal documentary [French]
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Wed. 11 January 2023
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Auditorium
Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Auditorium
10:00 am
Christine Germain-Donnat (musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Fondation François Sommer, Paris)
Christine Germain-Donnat (musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Fondation François Sommer, Paris)
Introduction
10:10 am - 12:20 pm
Moderator: Violette Pouillard (CNRS/Ghent University)
Moderator: Violette Pouillard (CNRS/Ghent University)
1st Session: Animal representations, imperial circulations, colonial anxieties
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10:10 am | Katherine Fein (Columbia University) – Transatlantic Intimacies: Sarah Goodridge and African Elephants
10:40 am | Emmanuelle Fantin and Sophie Corbillé (Sorbonne Université) – Why look at animals at the Universal Exhibitions in London and Paris (1855-1889)? [French]
11:10 am | Break
11:20 am | Kate Nichols (University of Birmingham) – Telling Tales: Big Cat Biographies, British Imperial Networks, and the Paintings of Briton Riviere
11:50 am | Annie Ronan (Virginia Polytechnic Institute) – An African American Animalier in the Lions’ Den: Race, Species, and Colonial Visuality in Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Animal Studies
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12:20-2:00 pm
Lunch break
2:00 - 4:30 pm
Moderators: Leïla Jarbouai (musée d’Orsay) and Sandra Buratti-Hasan (musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux), curators of the exhibition Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899))
Moderators: Leïla Jarbouai (musée d’Orsay) and Sandra Buratti-Hasan (musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux), curators of the exhibition Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899))
2nd Session: Rosa Bonheur, seeing with animals?
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2:00 pm | Michel Pons (musée de l’atelier de Rosa Bonheur) – Rosa Bonheur and her relationship with animals [French]
2:30 pm | Estelle Zhong Mengual (Beaux-Arts de Paris/Sciences Po) – Rosa Bonheur’s relational eye for animals [French]
3:00 pm | Katie Hornstein (Dartmouth College) – Rosa Bonheur, François Bidel, and the Spectacle of Lion Captivity
3:30 pm | Valérie Bienvenue (Université de Montréal) – Out of respect for the “Other”, the horses. The hospitable character of Rosa Bonheur’s art [French]
4:00 pm | Oriane Poret (Université Lumière Lyon 2) – “A kind of mesmeric power” What the writings and images say about Rosa Bonheur’s relationship with animals [French]
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4:30 - 6:00 pm
Moderator: Christine Germain-Donnat (musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Fondation François Sommer, Paris)
Moderator: Christine Germain-Donnat (musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Fondation François Sommer, Paris)
3rd Session: Committing to Protect
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4:30 pm | Maître Ambroise Colombani (Cabinet d’avocats Colombani Semmel) – The Grammont law to defend animals [French]
5:00 pm | Éric Baratay (Université Jean Moulin-Lyon III) – Another Rosa: Séverine, writer, artist, animal activist, feminist, socialist [French]
5:30 pm | Diane Bouteiller (architecte du patrimoine, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) – The Vénerie forest: a privileged setting of inspiration for Rosa Bonheur [French]
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Coinciding with the exhibition Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899), Musée d’Orsay, Paris, 18 October 2022 – 15 January 2023
Partners: AWARE (Archives for Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions), Paris; Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature; Musée d’Orsay and Musée de l’Orangerie.
