Art Chowder September | October Issue No. 29 | Page 34

By Melville Holmes and Kathryn Brogdon
I don’t think of myself as an historian in the
conventional understanding of the word. I’m a writer,
who has chosen other days from our own, other times . . . That’s
what I want to write about.
I love to tell a story. And I particularly love to tell a true story.
Of what really happened to real people.
Who were as alive, and as human as we are. In some ways
maybe more so.
David McCullough,
HBO documentary, “Painting with Words,” 2018 1
34 ART CHOWDER MAGAZINE
”Vigée Le Brun’s name, for those who know it, calls to mind two
or three “icons”of female coquettishness, motherly affection,
or the memory of a martyred queen. This catalogue proposes
to show that the artist’s life and work continue to offer a vast
and compelling field of investigation. The aim is to project the
image of an extremely gifted Frenchwoman fully engaged in
her time — a time marked by events that would throw Europe
into chaos.
Joseph Baillio, “The Artistic Odyssey of Elisabeth Louise Vigée
Le Brun” 2