Marie Bashkirtseff

Marie Bashkirtseff was a russian diarist, painter, and sculptor.

Bashkirtseff was born Maria Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva in Gavrontsi near Poltava to a wealthy noble family, but her parents separated when she was quite young. As a result, she grew up mostly abroad, traveling with her mother throughout most of Europe, with longer spells in Germany and on the Riviera, until the family settled in Paris. Educated privately and with early musical talent, she lost her chance at a career as a singer when illness destroyed her voice. She then determined on becoming an artist, and she studied painting in France at the RobertFleury studio and at the Acadmie Julian. The Acadmie, as one of the few establishments that accepted female students, attracted young women from all over Europe and the United States. Fellow students at the Acadmie included Anna BiliskaBohdanowiczowa and especially Louise Breslau, whom Bashkirtseff viewed as her only real rival. Bashkirtseff would go on to produce a remarkable, if fairly conventional, body of work in her short lifetime, e

Source: Wikipedia