Élodie La Villette


Élodie La Villette, born Elodie Jacquier, was a French painter. She is said to be one of the few women to have an artistic career when many routes were denied to her.

Life

Elodie/Ella was born in 1848 to an army doctor and his wife. They moved frequently and her younger sister, Caroline, was born four years later.
During the 1860s, the two sisters, Ella and Caroline Jacquier, took drawing classes with the painter Ernest Coroller in the Lycée Dupuy-de-Lôme. This influenced both their careers, since they both became painters, known under the respective names of Elodie La Villette and Caroline Espinet. Her sister was to study with Hippolyte Lazerges. Ella married in 1860 and her sister in 1868 and they painted together. This was not a mere hobby as they did exhibit. She had a painting accepted by the Salon in 1870 and she was awarded a third class medal in 1875. The following year her painting "La grève de Lohic et de l'île de la Souris près de Lorient" was bought by Musée d'Orsay. Her painting won a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1889.
La Villette exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Arts and The Woman's Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.
Élodie La Villette, who received the advice of Jean-Baptiste Corot in 1874, carries off "marine art" sensitive to light effects which are reminiscent of both Courbet's realism and the virtuosity of Boudin".

Exhibitions