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...a Nashville painter still struggling to emerge from the shadows cast by her male contemporaries of the late 19th century. In Newman’s case, her art was good enough to be included in the prestigious Paris Salons of the 1890s but today hangs primarily in private collections rather than public museums. And while Newman was the only artist from Tennessee listed in the 1910 Who’s Who in America, her name merits only a line in most art reference books today—if it even appears at all.
... During her first year in Paris, one of her works was selected for the Salon of 1891—a rare honor for an American student, male or female.... Newman would go on to exhibit in six more Salons during her 12 years in Paris.
...Newman evidently supported herself, albeit meagerly (she reportedly lived on nothing but beans and oatmeal), through the sale of her art while in Europe. Why she moved permanently to Nashville in 1902, then, is unclear.
...It is not in Newman’s portraits of the rich and powerful, however, that the artist’s enduring legacy lies. Nor is it in her beautifully crafted but overly derivative landscape, still-life and genre paintings.
...It is this ability to draw the viewer in and away to another time, place or emotional level with a few strokes of paint that defines great art. At her best, Newman could indeed produce great art—even if the rest of the world chose not to notice. When she died in 1935, she was completely forgotten as an artist.
(http://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/article/13006747/an-artist-reclaimed)
Willie Betty Newman; American painter. Born on a plantation during the Civil War, she studied painting in Cincinnati, Ohio and Paris, France. She exhibited her paintings in Parisian salons in the 1890s. She established a studio in Nashville, TN in the early 1900s, where she did portraits of prominent Tennesseans, including President James K. Polk.
...She died on Feb. 6, 1935 in Nashville, TN.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Betty_Newman) undefined