Sophie PembertonLife & Work

At the turn of the twentieth century, when few women made their name as professional artists, Victoria, B.C.-born Sophie Pemberton (1869–1959) earned international acclaim for her realist portraits and landscape paintings. Propelled by extraordinary ambition and talent, in 1899 Pemberton won the prestigious Prix Julian for her portraiture; that same year, she began showing at the Paris Salon, where critics were captivated by her modern, Impressionist-influenced canvases.

In Sophie Pemberton: Life & Work, author Kathryn Bridge offers a comprehensive account of this exceptional artist’s oeuvre, spanning fifty years from the time when, at the age of twenty, Pemberton began her formal academic training in South Kensington, England. It explores how, with drive and tenacity, Pemberton studied Renaissance art and sketched landscapes en plein air in Italy, exhibited her work throughout England, and cemented her reputation in Paris.