Louise Blair Daura: A Virginian in Paris

Correspondence From Paris

When Louise Blair’s Virginia family sent her to Paris in the 1920s to study art, they didn’t expect her to marry her art teacher. The young woman traveled to the City of Lights to learn painting, see the sights and become a more cultured person, not to pursue a career as a professional artist. Shortly after arriving there, she met and fell for the Barcelona-born painter Pierre Daura, who ended up giving her art lessons. Her family disapproved, but she married Daura anyway and painted alongside him. This exhibition, accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue publishing many of her letters(opens in new tab), was the first attempt by a museum to examine her work and included all her known paintings, drawings and prints. It traveled to the Daura Gallery at Lynchburg College.