Lluïsa Vidal i Puig

Lluïsa Vidal was the only woman recognised as a professional painter by both her fellow professionals and the critics of the time.
She started her training in drawing and painting with Enric Gómez in the workshop belonging to her father, the cabinet maker F. Vidal, and also took classes from the painter Arcadi Mas i Fontdevila. She exhibited for the first time in 1898 at Els Quatre Gats together with other outstanding painters of the moment. At the beginning of the century she went to Paris on her own and studied there with Jean Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian and Georges Humbert´s private art school.
Her painting was not confined to still lifes, the usual subject of paintings done by women, but took in other genres, which secured her a loyal clientele (Retrat de la seva germana Marta Vidal [Portrait of Her Sister Marta Vidal], MNAC collection).
On returning to Barcelona she held various exhibitions in the most important galleries of the period and opened a painting and drawing academy. She was later commissioned by the City Council to paint a portrait and became an active figure in the cultural and social movements of the time.