Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Anna Alma-Tadema



 Anna Alma-Tadema
1867-1943

The only thing harder than being a female Victorian artist? Being a female Victorian artist with a famous father.  Anna lived her life in the shadow of Sir Lawrence Tadema. She was described by a biographer as "a delicate, dainty artist who inherited so much of her father's power for reproducing detail." The implication being that it came all-so-easy to her.  I wonder?

When she was just a teenager, she did these amazing watercolors of the interior of the Alma-Tadema family house in London. Townsend House was extravagantly decorated by her father to resemble a Roman villa. The color and light are just beautiful and the details evocative of a rich and interesting life style.

Anna Tadema's work was exhibited in at the 1893 Colombian Exposition in Chicago and she won a medal at a Paris exhibition, but she did not have a successful career in later life. She and her sister never married and died poor. She supported women's right to vote, but not much is known about her life.



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