Romaine Brooks (1874 - 1970)
America remained Victorian, said the friend of Nathalie Clifford Barney, Romaine Brooks, “a woman painter had as bad a reputation as an artist.”
Beatrice Romaine Goddard was born in Italy to American parents who divorced when she was young. She had a miserable childhood, but became independently wealthy when her mother passed away (1902). She was 28 and had inherited from her grandfather, the multi-millionaire Isaac S. Waterman, Jr.
She first came to Europe in 1893 and lived in Paris, Rome, Capri, London, and the south of France where she died at the age of 96.
According to Desanti (1984), "At Reid Hall, Romaine saw Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, Lila Cabot Perry, Florence Este, and others."
She found a studio in Capri and lived on the island for almost two years, married to... interrupted by one or two study trips to Paris, at the Colarossi Academy, where she had studied from 1899-1900.