Birgitta Moran Farmer

Birgitta’s lodgings and studios were located exclusively in Montparnasse, a Parisian district that had long attracted artists from around the world. By the mid-19th century, 1500 artists were living there, and the number continued to grow. Models were easily available as were studios in which to do their work. During the latter half of the century, a model’s market occurred each Monday on the corner of Boulevard Montparnasse and the Rue de la Grande Chaumière. The nearby Rue Notre-Dame des Champs held “the record for the highest density of artists’ studios in the neighborhood” during Birgitta’s time in Paris. The premier state-funded institution for artists, the École des Beaux Arts, did not admit women until 1897. What became increasingly available to women were private academies, such as the ones where Birgitta received instruction. In October she started a full-length figure of a woman that she pronounced “very interesting”. In addition, she worked on a “dear little model who would suggest a “Velasquez type”. Another figure she described as an “interesting old man”. Birgitta did eventually have the opportunity to present her work to Prinet for a critique. She wrote that he liked her “old man” very much indeed, had commented that it was “très beau choisie [beautifully chosen]”. Furthermore, he declared that it appeared she had been painting for a long time. Birgitta reported other positive criticisms from Prinet, which she passed along in a letter to Tom Farmer. He replied that Prinet’s remarks were “a fine compliment” and if she would agree, he hoped to proudly repeat them to other people. In order to paint copies of works at the Louvre Museum, an essential activity for art students, Birgitta needed an authorization to do so. She writes that she seemed to have a “pal” there, one of the guards, who issued her a permit on 10 October without going through the usual requirement of securing a reference from the Consul or Ambassador. It was there that she selected a “masterwork” that she copied to fulfill her fellowship requirement to Syracuse University. When she returned home in 1907 she donated her copy of Bernadino Luini’s The Nativity to the College of Fine Arts (see Catalogue #302 for an image of the original at the Louvre). The work is no longer available having been destroyed, along with other student works, by the college. Students frequently received instruction at multiple studios, and it appears that Birgitta attempted to do the same. In December she wrote to her parents that she was “thinking seriously” of going to a school run by the French realist painter Charles Cottet (1863-1925). No further mention is made of Cottet but she did spend a week in early February working at the Académie Moderne. Located at 86, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, the studio claimed such illustrious neighbors as James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent. But existing evidence indicates that her primary studio was the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. Birgitta’s diary provides some limited information about her leisure time activities. She made regular stops at the American Express Office where she picked up mail from her family and friends. And she visited some of the city’s most famous sights. These included the Panthéon, Luxembourg Gardens, Church of the Madeleine, the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the department store Le Bon Marché as well as several restaurants. A visit to La Basilique du Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre elicited particular enthusiasm. Although the church was still under construction and not completed until 1912, she described it as a “magnificent edifice” that contained “beautiful mosaics”. In addition, she attended concerts and operas, including Carmen and Faust. The diary also notes attendance at daily Mass. At times, Birgitta met with visitors to Paris from home. Tom Farmer wrote shortly after she arrived there that he had had dinner with Ina Larkin, a neighbor of Hugh and Anna McSloy. Miss Larkin would be sailing the next day with her sister Mrs Wood and a friend, Mrs McNoe, and Tom had given Birgitta’s address to Miss Larkin. This led to at least one meeting when Birgitta reports having dinner with the trio at the Hotel Regina. They, in turn, conveyed to Tom when they returned home that Birgitta appeared well and happy in her work, which he was pleased to hear. The final entry in her diary, 9 February 1907, refers to routine activities—walking to the Louvre in the afternoon and then calling on friends. Although nearly seventy blank pages follow, there are no further entries. Did Birgitta continue daily writings in another volume that is now lost? Did she not have time to maintain a journal? In any event, specifics about her life in Paris after that date remain vague. Birgitta, however, inserted several quotations at the back of the diary that presumably were meaningful to her at that time. The following is one example: “There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, lead on to fortune” (Julius Caesar IV/iii) followed by an excerpt from Lord Byron’s Don Juan, Canto 6: “‘There is a tide in the affairs of men which, -taken at the flood,’ – you know the rest, and most of us have found it now and then […] but few have guessed the moment, Till too late to come again.” While one can only speculate, do these reveal Birgitta’s sense of seizing the opportunity afforded to her during her year in Paris?