Ivana Kobilca
Ivana Kobilca is the most prominent Slovene woman painter and a key figure of Slovene cultural identity. She was a realist painter who studied and worked in Vienna, Munich, Paris, Sarajevo, Berlin, and Ljubljana. She mostly painted oil paintings and pastels, whereas her drawings are few. The themes include still lifes, portraits, genre works, allegories, and religious scenes. She has been contradictory and criticised, because she followed movements that had not developed further in later periods.
Ivana Kobilca was born in Ljubljana as a daughter in a wealthy family of a crafstman. Her parents gave great emphasis on education. At first, she learned how to draw, but also French and Italian, in the Ursuline High School in her home town, where her teacher of drawing was Ida Knl. When she was 16, she went with her father to Vienna, where she saw the paintings of old masters that inspired her. From 1879 to 1880, she studied in Vienna, and from 1880 to 1881 in Munich, where she copied the paintings at the gallery of the Academy of Arts. From 1882 to 1889, she continued her studies under Alois Erdtelt. In 1888, she participated for the first time in a public exhibition. At the following exhibition in Munich, her work was spotted and praised by the prominent German art historian Richard Muther. and then returned to Ljubljana. In 1890, she painted in Zagreb. In 1891 and 1892, she painted in Paris in the private school of Henri Gervex. She became an honorary member of Socit Nationale des
Source: Wikipedia