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1879
Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau pioneered the course for herself and for women in general in the arts in many ways prior to her liason with the reknowned William Bouguereau, who she eventually married after a seventeen year engagement. Traveling to Paris in 1864 from her native New England to further her art studies Gardner established herself quickly in her new world. Listing such esteemed academic masters as Hughes Merle, J. Lefebvre and Bouguereau as her teachers, she rapidly developed a technique and vocabulary which appealed not only to her American patrons who frequently visited her Paris studio, but to the male-dominated Academy as well. She was the first American woman ever to exhibit at a Paris Salon. During her life time she won many official awards, the highlight being the gold medal in the 1889 Salon, the first gold medal to be awarded to a woman and an American woman at that!
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