Sophie Gengembre Anderson

Who was Sophie Gengembre Anderson?

Sophie Gengembre Anderson was a French-born British artist who specialised in genre painting of children and women, typically in rural settings. Her work is loosely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

Sophie was born in Paris, the daughter of Charles Gengembre, an architect, and his English wife. She had two brothers, Philip and Henry P. She was largely self-taught in art, but briefly studied portraiture with Charles de Steuben in Paris in 1843. The family left France for the United States to escape the 1848 revolution, first settling in Cincinnati, Ohio, then Manchester, Pennsylvania, where she met and married British genre artist Walter Anderson.

In the USA, Anderson initially worked in portraiture, including work for the chromolithographers Louis Prang & Co. In 1854 the Andersons moved to London, where Sophie exhibited her works at the Royal Academy. They returned to New York in 1858, then settled in London again around 1863. In 1871, they moved to the island of Capri for health reasons, but Sophie continued to send her work back to London for exhibitions. They returned permanently to England in 1894, settling in Falmouth, Cornwall.