Louise Amans

Louise Amans was born in Basel, Switzerland, to French parents. She studied at Académie Julian in Paris, the only school where women artists could access the same teaching as men. There she was taught by Benjamin Constant, Jean-Paul Laurens and Jules Lefebvre. She exhibited for the first time at the Paris Salon in 1889, then at the first Swiss National Fine Arts Exhibition in Bern in 1890. Her works were frequently exhibited in Paris, Bern and Basel.

Amans was an accomplished portraitist, as well as a marine and still life painter. She returned to Basel in 1895 and moved in with the Belgian artist Augusta Roszmann, whom she had met at the Académie Julian. She sadly died at the young age of 37. Her work is honoured at the Fine Arts Museum Basel, where an entire room is dedicated to her work.