Following Louis Janmot: The Poem of the Soul in 2023, the Fondation Etrillard is once again supporting a Musée d’Orsay exhibition showcasing the work of a little-known 19th-century painter.
Although celebrated during her lifetime and undeniably talented, Harriet Backer had fallen into relative obscurity outside the borders of her home country, Norway. This rich retrospective, the first exhibition dedicated to this artist in France, finally restores her to her rightful place.
In partnership with major Norwegian art institutions, it will run from September 24, 2024, to January 12, 2025.
Harriet Backer, “Evening, Interior [Aften, interiør]”, 1896, Oslo, National Museum, © National Museum / Børre Høstland
Little-known outside her native country, Harriet Backer was the most renowned female painter in Norway at the end of the 19th century. She achieved a highly personal synthesis of interior scenes and plein-air painting, drawing inspiration from both the realist movement and the innovations of Impressionism through free brushwork, a brightening palette, and a deep interest in the variations of light. While Backer’s painting evolved significantly from a stylistic point of view over her long career, she remained faithful to a limited number of subjects and direct study from life.
Harriet Backer, “My Studio”, 1918, Bergen, Kode Bergen Art Museum, © Kode / Dag Fosse
Sister to a renowned composer, Agathe Backer Grøndahl, she placed music at the heart of her work, both as a subject and as a model.
Like many bourgeois women, Backer mastered the piano, and it held pride of place in her apartments in Paris and Kristiania (Oslo). The theme of the woman at the piano permeates Backer’s work throughout her career.
More than just a theme, music was a model for Backer: she wanted the painting to be “music for the eye”. Like many artists of her time, she saw music as the aspiration and model for all art. Through brushwork, composition, and color, she created rhythms and colorful harmonies that translate the impressions produced by music.
Harriet Backer, “At the Piano [Ved pianoet]”, 1894, Oslo, National Museum, © National Museum / Børre Høstland
Returning to Norway in the early 1890s after training in the major European art capitals of Munich and Paris, Harriet Backer opened a mixed painting school, which was exceptional for the time. This studio became one of the most important in the country before the creation of the Academy of Fine Arts. This teaching supplemented her income because she painted so slowly that she could not live solely from the sale of her paintings. As a teacher, she encouraged everyone to develop their own style. Backer had a considerable influence on a whole younger generation of Norwegian artists.
Serving on numerous exhibition juries, Backer was also, for twenty years, a member of the board of directors and the acquisition committee of the National Gallery of Norway.
Harriet Backer, “Jonasberget Farm [Jonasberget]”, 1892, Bergen, Kode Bergen Art Museum © Kode / Dag Fosse