Tag: women artists
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In Honor of 400 years since Sofonisba
https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Ermine-Renaissance-Biographical-Anguissola/dp/1734614706 Sofonisba dreamed. She struggled. And she succeeded. Then history forgot her. In honor of 400 years since her death, read her story.
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Sofonisba’s Legacy
November, 1625 Imagine that 400 years ago, in November, 1625, Sofonisba Anguissola died, around the age of 90, leaving a body of work that spanned over 80 years. Her oils can be found all over the world, some still being discovered. Imagine a woman who did all that, so long ago. Sofonisba Anguissola was truly…
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Excited for the Bay Area Book Festival. Come visit me Sunday May 7th in Berkeley
I’ll be signing books you bring. Find through your local bookshop or on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Lady-Ermine-Renaissance-Biographical-Anguissola/dp/1734614706 ISBN 978-1-7346147-0-1 ISBN 978-0-86698-821-6. LADY IN ERMINE dramatizes the true life of the most successful female artist of the Renaissance Sofonisba Anguissola (c.1535-1625) who influenced generations of artists, and then history forgot about her.
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Lady in Ermine in Rome
Lady in Ermine and Sofonisba in Rome with Domina, the novel and new series based on the life of Livia, another historic woman with a story to tell.
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Happy International Women’s Day
And thank you, Leticia Ruiz, for the beautiful curation of the exhibition.
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The Chess Game
Just last week the Wall Street Journal published an article about hobbies and diversions and referenced Sofonisba’s Chess Game painted in 1555. WSJ spoke of the hobbies that entertained the nobility. What Sofonisba enthusiasts see in the painting is the ingenuity of her work and the subversive messages of female power embedded in the chess…
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Master Sofonisba Anguissola
In honor of Sofonisba’s newly recognized accomplishments and the Prado exhibition of her work, I would like to present her Boy Bitten (drawn for Michelangelo) and her Girl Laughing next to each other to accentuate Sofonisba’s effort. She conceived of these close in time and the figures and positioning show how she experimented with subtle…
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Sofonisba’s Inventiveness; Vasari’s Inventione

Given Sofonisba’s 1554 Dominican Astronomer (signed and dated upside down), her nonconformist, voluptuous 1559 Virgin Mary (signed and dated) and her 1578 Madonna dell’ Itria, documented by her official bequest to the monastery (disputed for years as beyond her style), one cannot deny Sofonisba’s range, and the reason Vasari uses the term invenzione to describe her. Which…
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Who Painted the Lady in Ermine? Sofonisba or El Greco? Biography not Brushstrokes convinces: It’s Sofonisba, Cradle to Grave
The details of Sofonisba Anguissola’s life show that she had the physical and geographical opportunity to paint a mature Catalina Micaela that her male contemporaries El Greco and Coello did not being far away in Spain. Sofonisba also had personal insight into the Infanta’s private world to render the Infanta of Spain, Catalina Micaela, as…
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Sofonisba Was Not Always Forgotten

In 1774, Giambattista Zaist wrote Notizie Istoriche de’ Pittori, Scultori, ed Architetti Cremonesi or Historical Notes of Painters, Sculptors, and Architects of Cremona. For seven pages he writes about the accomplishments of Sofonisba Anguissola, recounting her early years, her time in Spain, her long legacy. He concludes with these words, “che superò l’artifizio non solo…