“Valérie André is one of the great military aviators of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to fly a helicopter in combat and one of the first three helicopter medevac pilots. Flying more than 150 helicopter rescue missions during the French war in Indochina (including at Dien Bien Phu), and parachuting into the […]
Simone de Beauvoir: Her Life and Significance
French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir is most famous for her 1949 book The Second Sex. She had a significant impact on the development of modern feminist theory, though she never considered herself a philosopher and didn’t call herself a feminist until later in life. In regard to her own work she called herself […]
Théroigne de Méricourt, Heroine of the French Revolution
Born Anne-Josèphe Terwagne on 13 August 1762, but better known as Théroigne de Méricourt, Théroigne is a sad, yet fascinating figure who was a political activist of the French Revolution. The French press turned her into a flamboyant caricature, labeling her a “patriots’ whore” or a “female war chief” and praising her for impersonating the […]
Rose-Adélaïde Ducreux, French painter, composer, and musician
Though the art world of the 18th century was dominated by men, quite a few women were trained as artists and held their own in exhibits and sales. One of these women was Rose-Adélaïde Ducreux, whose portrait of herself tuning her harp is a gorgeous and historically fascinating work of art. Rose was born in […]
Suzanne Valadon, self-taught artist of Bohemian Paris
Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) was a successful, self-trained artist of Montmartre in Paris. She began her career modelling for such artists as Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir, and was close friends with Degas and the composer Erik Satie (who proposed to her immediately — but she turned him down). Watching how the artists painted her, she taught herself […]
