Art Inconnu - Little-known and under-appreciated art.: Maria Blanchard (1881 - 1932)

Art Inconnu - Little-known and under-appreciated art.: Maria Blanchard (1881 - 1932)
Excerpt:   [In tribute to 'Alessandra'....]
Maria Blanchard was born horribly disfigured from a fall that her mother took while she was pregnant. Her disfigurements included enanismo, which is like dwarfism, a hump on her back, much like a polio victim would have and cojera, which is a deformity in the hips, making walking very difficult. She was often referred to as "the witch". This led her to live a life of solitude. However, this did not stop Maria from becoming a great artist.....
Maria Gutierrez Blanchard was the first-born child of Conception Blanchard and Enrique Gutierrez. She was born in March of 1881, in Santander, Spain. In 1903, Maria moved to Madrid so she could study to become a painter. Her teachers included Fernando Alvarez de Sotomayor, Manuel Benedito andEmelio Sala.

In 1909, Maria's hard work and training won her a grant to continue her studies in Paris, at the Academy Vitti (Academie Vitti), where she studied under Hermengildo Anglada Camarasa, and Kees Van Dongen. While at the Academy, Kees taught her how to break out of the constraints on her artwork that she was taught while studying in Spain. It was during this time that she was introduced to Cubism, after meeting artists such as, Jacques Lipchitz and Juan Gris. These two artists greatly influenced much of Maria's future works....
...

- Speaking of Maria Blanchard
Perhaps just by being Maria Blanchard she is giving a second lesson from her position, a lesson in getting the work done, despite disability and pain, despite poverty, despite gender and the lack of critical acclaim. Despite all that, an artist finally is not necessarily the one with wealth or health or fame: she is the one who creates art.
NOTES
i "Elegia a María Blanchard," in the original Spanish online. The translation referred to here (in addition to my own) is that of Christopher Maurer's in Deep Song and Other Prose by Federico Garcia Lorca. Edited and Translated by Christopher Maurer (NY: New Directions, 1980.)