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Pioneering Women: Lessons from Paris and the Making of an Art Scene in the American West

Heather Belnap

Abstract

At the turn of the century a number of intrepid women from the newly formed state of Utah crossed the Atlantic to further their art education in Paris. As they trained in the single-sex ateliers and participated in women’s art associations, they formed strong bonds of collegiality and found profitable models for professional female networks. These lessons would prove essential as this band of sisters later worked to establish Salt Lake City as the art Mecca of the American West. While the significant gains made by women artists at the turn-of-the-century French art scene is common knowledge in feminist art history, little scholarship has been devoted to the specific ways in which thousands of American women who trained abroad during this pivotal era applied their art education once home. This essay serves as a case study in the afterlife of their French education and what this meant for the professional development of women artists in the western United States.

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