Little Stories of Great Women Artists is an original project of playful and educational animated videos for children from the age of 7 and older. The objective of each episode? To shed light on the life and work of a woman artist from the 19th or 20th century in a three-minutes video. Imagined by screenwriter Sophie Caron, each story conveys the originality of an artist’s approach, their importance within an artistic movement, certain significant biographical stories, as well as difficulties that the artist may have encountered in her practice.

In a landscape where children’s publications and activities about art privilege male artists, this new and unique project intends for younger audiences to be able to identify important figures beyond all gender stereotypes. Through the discovery of these women artists, we hope to invite as many people as possible to discover the emotion that art can bring.

This new episode takes us from Norway to various European countries to trace the story of one of Norway’s most famous artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Harriet Backer.

Born into a family of merchants in southern Norway, her family moved to Christiania (now Oslo) in 1857, where she took painting lessons and soon began producing highly accomplished paintings. From 1866, she toured Europe, particularly with her sister, the famous pianist and composer Agathe Backer Grøndhal. In Germany, Italy and France, she perfected her training and built her professional reputation.

Harriet Backer was a highly respected artist of her time: she was the first woman to sit on the acquisitions committee of the National Gallery of Norway, where she servied for twenty years, and she founded an art school in Christiania (now Oslo).