Marianne Stokes

Who was Marianne Stokes?

Marianne Stokes, born Marianne Preindlsberger in the Austrian province of Styria, was an Austrian painter. She settled in England after her marriage to Adrian Scott Stokes, the landscape painter, whom she had met in Pont-Aven. Marianne Stokes was considered one of the leading artists in Victorian England.

Preindlsberger was born in Graz, Styria. She first studied in Munich under Lindenschmidt and having been awarded a scholarship for her first picture, Muttergluck, she worked in France under Pascal Adolphe Jean Dagnan-Bouveret, Colin and Gustave Courtois. She painted in the countryside and Paris, and, as with many other young painters, fell under the spell of the rustic naturalist Jules Bastien-Lepage. Her style continued to show his influence even when her subject matter changed from rustic to medieval romantic and biblical. While in France she met the Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck, in whose company she visited Pont-Aven in 1883.

Her first salon painting, Reflection, which had been painted in Brittany, was exhibited in 1885 at the Royal Academy.