Ulrika Pasch
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Ulrika Fredrica Pasch , called Ulla Pasch (1735–1796), was a Swedish painter, one of few female artists known in Scandinavia before the 19th century. She was also a miniaturist.
[edit] Biography
She was born in an artistic family, daughter of the painter Lorenz Pash the Older, and sister of the future painter Lorenz Pasch the Younger. Her uncle Johan Pasch was also a painter.
In the 1750s, when her brother was studying abroad, her father's career declined severely, and Ulrika was forced to become a housekeeper in the home of her maternal aunt's widower. Her uncle however allowed her to spend a lot of time developing her artistic talent, and from 1756, she had become a professional portrait painter and was able to support her father and sister in this way; after her fathers death, she lived with her sister and set up her own studio.
When her brother returned to Sweden in 1766, she had been an artist for ten years and her clientele had moved from the middle class to the upper classes and the aristocracy. Ulrika Pasch and her brother then worked together as professional artists, shared their studio and guided each other in their work; their collaboration was one of mutual respect and harmony, and she is knon to have helped him painting the textiles and costumes, a work he found tiring.
Ulrika Pasch was as a person humble, and never considered her work to be much more than a way of supporting herself, but she continued to work until her death and she obtained great success; from the late 1760s, she was often employed by the court, painting portraits of the members of the royal family, and in 1773, she was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts together with her brother, although she never received a pension from the crown despite repeated appeals.
Ulrika Pasch is the most successful female artist in Sweden and perhaps also the rest of Scandinavia (counting the artist who was actually working in these countries) before the 19th century, and she is also, together with Margareta Capsia (1682-1759) Helena Arnell and Johanna Marie Fosie, one of very few professional female artists in Scandinavia before the 19th century.
Her work was for many years after her death neglected, as she was seen as merely a supplement to her brother, and her paintings has ben regarded as good and skillful but common and banal, but lately, she has ben rediscovered, as the interest for female artist and their work has ben revalued.
