Isabella Bird was born in Boroughbridge, England. Growing up, the family frequently moved, and her parents home-schooled her. Since she was little, Bird suffered from various illnesses, including a spinal complaint, insomnia, and nervous headaches. To improve her health, she spent most of her time outdoors and learned to ride and row, skills that became helpful later in her life. As an avid reader and writer, she published her first essay at 16, discussing free trade versus protectionism. At 23, following a spine surgery, she was advised to go on a sea voyage to strengthen her health, and she embarked on her first journey to Canada and the US. The letters she wrote on this trip became the basis of her first book, An Englishwoman in America, published in 1856. Following her father’s death in 1858, Bird moved to Edinburgh with her mother and sister. During the next decade, she wrote about her experiences in North America, publishing two more books and several articles. In 1872, at 41, Bird once again left the UK, this time to Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. She compiled her adventures in the book Six Months In The Sandwich Islands, published in 1875. She continued to Colorado, traveling 800 miles of the Rocky Mountains on a horse. Her letters to her sister were published in The Leisure Hour and later in her bestseller book A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains. After a short stay in Edinburgh, she packed her bags and left for Japan, where she lived with the Ainu tribe, and wrote about it in the 1880 book Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. Then, she traveled to Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, Egypt, and the Sinai Peninsula. There she contracted typhoid fever and returned to Scotland to recover. There she married Dr. John Bishop, ten years her junior, although he died only five years after. Bird decided to devote her life to medical missions. In 1886, after studying medicine at St. Mary’s Hospital in London, she joined the missionary cause, and at 58, she began her journey to India, going through Turkey, Kurdistan, and Persia. That was the first trip in which Bird began to document her experiences not only by pen but also by image, taking photos of the places she visited and the people she met and publishing the pictures together with her writings. In India, Bird worked with the renowned medical missionary Fanny Jane Butler and founded the Henrietta Bird Hospital for Women in Punjab and the John Bishop Memorial Centre in Cashmere. By then, Bird’s recording of her extensive traveling made her a household name. Her writing style was accessible and entertaining, crafting her personal experiences relatable to all and making her readers feel like they were out there with her. In 1890, at 59, Bird became a fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and the following year, she made history as the first woman to be elected as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Later she was also appointed a member of the Royal Photographic Society. In 1897, at 66, she traveled through China and Korea, publishing her encounters in the 1899 book The Yangtze Valley and Beyond. Bird’s final journey was to Morocco in 1900, where she joined the Berbers for a few months. Not long after her return, Bird fell ill. She died in her home in Edinburgh at the age of 73. Read more...

Samella Sanders Lewis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, and grew up in Ponchatoula, Louisiana. Her passion for art started from a young age, inspired by various genres, from comic books and Romance novels to depictions of police brutality against African Americans. In 1941, at 18, she began to study history at Dillard University, taking only one art class. Encouraged by her professor and later mentor, the artist Elizabeth Catlett, she changed her major to art and later transferred to Hampton Institute in Virginia, earning a master’s degree in 1947. In those years, she began collecting art, mainly by artists associated with Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) and the Harlem Renaissance. She took a teaching position at Morgan State University while furthering her education in art history and cultural anthropology at Ohio State University. In 1951, at 28, Lewis completed her doctorate and became the first African American woman to earn a doctorate in fine art and art history. In 1953, Lewis got appointed the chair of the fine arts department at Florida A&M University, serving the position for five years. That year, she organized the first professional conference for African American artists. As a member of the NAACP and a civil rights activist, Lewis encountered harassment from the KKK, which led her to leave Florida in 1958. She took a teaching post at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, where she developed an interest in Asian art, culture, and languages. Over time, she returned to focus on African American Art as an artist and a scholar. She became known for her figurative works, which included linocuts, lithographs, and serigraphs, mainly pictorial manifestations of black liberation, as seen in her work Field. In 1966, Lewis began teaching at California State University at Long Beach and established herself as a leading figure in the Los Angeles art scene. She created the short documentary series “The Black Artists” and worked as a coordinator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where she fought for hiring more Black workers and founded the Concerned Citizens for Black Art group, which defined guidelines for the museum to be more inclusive. In 1969, she coedited the two volumes of Black Artists on Art, and to publish the book, she cofounded Contemporary Crafts Gallery – the first African American–owned art book publication. The following year, she was appointed professor of art history and humanities at Scripps College, becoming the first African American faculty member to receive tenure. In 1975, at 52, Lewis cofounded the journal Black Art: An International Quarterly, later renamed International Review of African American Art. The following year, she established the Museum of African American Art, serving as its senior curator until 1986. Lewis organized exhibitions and developed educational programs, claiming that museums are responsible for exploring the roots and origins of African American art. She continued to establish three more African American art museums and galleries in LA. Throughout her life, Lewis earned four degrees, published seven books, created five films, and displayed her artworks in nine solo and group exhibitions. She died of renal failure at the age of 99. Read more...

Amrita Sher-Gil was born in Budapest, then in the Kingdom of Hungary. Her father was an Indian Punjabi Sikh aristocrat scholar, and her mother was a Hungarian-Jewish opera singer. In 1921, when she was eight, the family moved to Summer Hill, Shimla, India. From a young age, Sher-Gil showed talent in painting but started her formal training only when arriving in India. She also learned piano and violin, and within a year of their arrival, she played in concerts at Shimla’s Gaiety Theatre. In 1924, at 11, she moved with her mother to Italy for a year, where she attended an art school in Florence and found inspiration in the works of the great Italian masters. At 16, she returned to Europe to get training as a painter in Paris. First, she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and later at the École des Beaux-Arts. At the time, she drew inspiration from Western art, especially the post-impressionism style, and included self-portraits, portraits of friends and classmates, still life, nudes, and Parisian life. At 19, she had her breakthrough with her painting Young Girls, for which she was awarded a gold medal and gained membership at the Associate of the Grand Salon in Paris, the youngest ever and the only Asian to become a member. In 1934, longings drew her back to India, and three years later, she embarked on a tour to South India to discover and explore her Indian roots. Inspired by the people and the scenery, especially the wall paintings of the Ajanta Caves, Sher-Gil began to incorporate her Western techniques with the Indian aesthetic. This new innovative style separated her from her contemporaries, particularly her use of colors, contrasting the pale tones of Bengal art. By then, Sher-Gil claimed to have found her ‘artistic mission,’ which was expressing the life of the Indian people through the canvas, as can be seen in her South Indian trilogy – Brahmacharis, Bride’s Toilet, and South Indian Villagers Going to Market. At 25, she married her Hungarian first cousin, Dr. Viktor Egan, and they settled near her paternal family in Saraya, in what is today Uttar Pradesh. There, she focused on rural life and began experimenting with the 17th-century Mughal miniatures painting style, as seen in her works In the Ladies, Village Scene, and Siesta. In 1941, Sher-Gil and her husband moved to Lahore, where she worked on her first major solo exhibition. She became ill only a few days before the show’s opening and slipped into a comma. She died a few days later, at the age of 28. Sher-Gil’s artistic style has influenced generations of Indian artists, and she is considered one of the significant avant-garde women artists of the early 20th century. Read more...

Edith Ke’kuhikuhiipu’uoneonaali’iokohala Kenao was born in Honomu, Hawaii. By the time she was born, Native Hawaiian culture and traditions had been oppressed for decades by Western imperialist policies that prohibited performing the native Hula dance and teaching Hawaiian languages. Even so, Kanakaʻole’s father, a musician, and her mother, a hula dancer, taught their children the traditional Hawaiian arts. Later, Kanakaʻole continued to learn hula dancing with Akoni Mika, a prominent dancer and chanter. In the middle of 7th grade, she quit school and spent time catching fish at the beach and developing her art. In addition to dancing, Kanakaʻole was a talented musician, composing songs and oli (Hawaiian chants), often combining choreographing hula with oli. Her performances gained popularity, and in 1950, Kanakaʻole toured Canada, the US, and several countries in Asia. In 1953, at 40, Kanakaʻole founded the Halau o Kekuhi hola school, where she served as Kumu Hula – the chief practitioner of traditional Hawaiian dance and culture. There, she created a distinct style of hula that derived from the dancing traditions of her native Hilo area. Kanakaʻole’s hula dance has characterized by dancing with deeply bent knees and dynamic movements. Over time, Kanakaʻole’s efforts to preserve the Hawaiian culture expanded into other areas, including the Hawaiian language. The rise of the Hawaiian Renaissance in the late 1960s and early 1970s was the perfect opportunity to promote the cause. She helped develop the first Hawaiian language program at the Keaukaha School in Hilo and the Hawaiian Studies Kupuna Program for the public schools. During the 1970s, Kanakaʻole worked as a teacher at Hawaiʻi Community College and the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, where she served as the lead Hawaiian language teacher and established the Bachelor of Arts degree in Hawaiian Studies. In her classes, Kanakaʻole taught all aspects of Hawaiian culture, including genealogy, Polynesian history, ethnobotany, land ownership, myths, and chants. She died of cancer at the age of 65. Read more...

Edris Stannus was born near Blessington, Ireland. At the age of seven, she moved to Kent, England, to live with her grandmother. At 10, she began to take ballet classes; three years later, she joined the Lila Field Academy for Children, where she got training from prominent ballet masters, such as Enrico Cecchetti and Edouard Espinosa. She danced in revues and music halls around London. In those days, ballet dancers had to have French or Russian stage names, so she changed her name to Ninette de Valois. In 1919, 21 years old de Valois received the role of a principal dancer of the Beecham Opera; two years later, she joined the prestigious Ballets Russes as a soloist, performing with the company throughout Europe. In 1924, at 26, she had to take a step back from intense dancing after discovering she had damage from an undiagnosed case of childhood polio. It changed the course of her career, and she decided to open a dancing school. In 1926, she founded the Academy of Choreographic Arts for girls in London and a sister school in Dublin. Only two years later, Lilian Baylis, the owner of the Old Vic Theatre, invited de Valois to provide dancers and coach actors in the theater’s productions. The collaboration was very successful, and in 1931, when Sadler’s Wells Theatre was re-opened, de Valois’ school moved in under a new name – the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. In that same year, she founded the Vic-Wells Ballet Company. In 1956, the company and school were granted a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth II and renamed the Royal Ballet. In addition to classic ballet production, such as Giselle, Swan Lake, and The Nutcracker, de Valois created original choreographies, such as Job, The Rake’s Progress, and Checkmate. In these productions, she withdrew from the traditional Russian convention, creating a distinctly English style of choreography, drawing from English tradition, themes, and sources, preferring British composers, and forming more prominent roles for male dancers. In 1963, at the age of 65, she retired as director of the Royal Ballet but headed the school for several more years. She continued to make public appearances and served as patron of various companies, including the Irish Theatre Ballet, the Cork Ballet Company, and the Irish National Ballet. She died at the age of 102. Read more...

Anna Maria Grosholtz was born in Strasbourg, France. Her father died two months before she was born, and not long after, she and her mother moved to Bern, Switzerland, where her mother found a position as the housekeeper of the physician Philippe Curtius. Curtius made anatomical wax models for teaching purposes and later used his talent as a wax master to create portraits of notable figures. In 1765, he moved to Paris, where he established a wax portraiture firm, and Tussaud and her mother joined him the following year. There, she learned the art of wax modeling and soon began to work as his assistant. At 16, she made her first wax figure; it was of the French philosopher Voltaire. Over the next decade, she created many of her most famous portraits, such as Benjamin Franklin and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In 1780, at 19, according to her memoirs, she was appointed the art tutor of Princess Elizabeth, Louis XVI’s sister, and lived in Versailles. So, when the French Revolution began, Tussaud, who was considered a royalist, was imprisoned but was released thanks to Curtius’s connections. To prove her allegiance to the Revolution, she had to make death masks for executed nobles, including Marie Antoinette, Maximilien Robespierre, and Princesse de Lamballe. In 1749, Curtius died, and she inherited his wax figures collection and his two museums. In the following year, she married François Tussaud and continued to create wax portraits. In 1802, at 41, she traveled to London to exhibit her collection. During this time, the Napoleonic wars started. Unable to return to Paris, she embarked on a 33 years exhibition tour through England and the British Isles, gaining fame and reputation for her wax figures creations. In 1835, at 74, she settled in London and established a permanent home for her exhibition on Baker Street. Upon her retirement, her son took over the management. She died in her sleep several years later, at the age of 88. In 1883, her grandson, who inherited his father’s role as the art director of the collection, moved the exhibition to Marylebone Road, where it still stands. Throughout the years, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum has grown to become one of the most popular tourist attractions in London and abroad, with more than 20 branches worldwide, including Read more...

Born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up in poverty after her father left the family when she was only a few months old. At the age of 8, she started working as a domestic servant for white families to support her family. Later on, she lived on the streets and earned money as a street performer. At 13, she began to work as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur’s Club, where she met Willie Wells. The couple got married but divorced only a few months later. She joined a street performance group, and in 1923, at the age of 16, she moved with them to NYC, leaving her second husband, William Howard Baker, whom she married the previous year. In NYC, she performed at the Plantation Club while auditioning for serval productions, finally landing a role in the chorus line of the Broadway revue Shuffle Along. Her comic touch made her stand out as an audience favorite, and soon, she booked her next Broadway role in the course line of The Chocolate Dandies. In 1925, at 18, Baker moved to Paris to dance in La Revue Nègre at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where she introduced to the French audience her danse sauvage (savage dance), wearing nothing but a skirt made of a string of bananas. Her star was on the rise, and she became one of the most popular entertainers in France, being admired by artists such as Ernest Hemingway, Jean Cocteau, and Picasso, who drew paintings of her. After a successful European tour in 1929, she acted in numerous films. With the money she earned, Baker bought an estate in the South of France called Château des Milandes. In the mid-30s, she sailed back to the US, trying to establish herself as a performer in her home country, but left after being scrutinized by the critics and receiving racist reactions from the crowd. On her return to France, she married her third husband, the French industrialist Jean Lion, and gave up her American citizenship to become a French citizen. When WW2 erupted, Baker was recruited by the Deuxième Bureau, the French military intelligence agency. As an entertainer, she traveled across occupied Europe and socialized with German politicians and high-rank officials to gather information. When Nazi Germany invaded France, she moved to her estate in the south, joined the Red Cross, and worked for Free France – the exiled French government. Later, she relocated to the French colony in Morocco, smuggling hidden messages in music sheets while entertaining the troops in North Africa and the Middle East. After the war, she received numerous honors for her work with the resistance. In 1947, Baker married her fourth husband, the French orchestra leader Jo Bouillon, returning to Paris and the stage, more popular than ever for her performance and tribute to the war effort. In 1951, she was invited to perform in the US and was appalled by the racial discrimination she had encountered. Though no longer an American citizen, she began to work with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and by refusing to perform in segregated venues, she helped to integrate live shows in Miami and Las Vegas. Baker could not get pregnant because of a hysterectomy due to complications of a stillbirth she had during the war. In the early 1950s, she began adopting children from different ethnicities and religions, calling her family The Rainbow Tribe. They lived on her estate in Southern France, which included a farm, rides, and numerous hotels. She charged an entrance fee for guests to use the facilities and watch her children sing, dance, and view her “experiment in brotherhood.” In 1968, at the age of 62, after a few years off the stage, she realized that her popularity had declined. In 1973, she made a comeback when performing at Carnegie Hall in NYC and was greeted with a standing ovation. In Paris, two years later, she had 50 years in business revue financed by Princess Grace and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The sold-out show was attended by A-listers such as Liza Minnelli, Mick Jagger, and Diana Ross. Four days later, she suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was found in her bed surrounded by newspapers with raving reviews of her show. She died in the following year at the age of 68. Read more...

Mary Violet Leontyne Price was born in Laurel, Mississippi. From an early age, she showed musical talent. At the age of four, she already played the piano, and growing up, she sang with the choir of her community church. At the age of 9, she went on a school trip to listen to Marian Anderson sing. The experience inspired her to pursue a professional music career. She attended Oak Park Vocational High School, where she stood out as a pianist and a member of the glee club, and in her free time, she earned extra money by singing at funerals and community events. After graduation, Price studied music education at the College of Education and Industrial Arts in Wilberforce, Ohio, but later changed to voice studies following the advice of the university president. In 1948, at 21, she moved to NYC and joined the studio of Florence Page Kimball at Juilliard. Her lyric soprano voice gained her many leading roles in school opera productions. Her performance as Alice Ford in Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff caught the attention of the composer Virgil Thomson, who cast her as St. Cecilia in his all-black production of Four Saints in Three Acts, and in 1952, 25 years old Price made her Broadway debut. Only a few weeks later, she sang the opening performance as Bess in George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, for which she received acclaim for both her flawless vocal and her interpretation of the role. Before the show embarked on a European tour, Price married her Porgy, the opera singer William Warfield. The couple divorced in 1973. Even though her voice was praised, she had limited opportunities in formal opera houses as a Black singer, and she mostly performed in duo concerts with her husband. In 1954, she made her recital debut at NYC’s Town Hall, and afterward, she went on a tour across North America as part of the Columbia Artists roster. Price made her TV debut as Floria in NBC’s televised production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca the following year. Afterward, she starred in three more NBC Opera broadcasts, singing the roles of Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Madame Lidoine in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites, and Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. In 1957, at 30, Price performed Verdi’s Aida, which became her signature role. That same year, she finally had her opera stage debut at the San Francisco Opera as Madame Lidoine in Francis Poulenc’s Dialogues des carmélites. Her performance made her famous, and she received invitations from the best opera houses and venues in Europe. In 1961, at 34, she made her debut performance at the Metropolitan Opera House as Leonora in Il Trovatore. It was the beginning of her residency as a prima donna at the prestigious establishment, and during the coming decades, she sang a series of leading roles, such as Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Minnie in La Fanciulla del West, Liu in Turandot, and Cleopatra in r Samuel Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra, a role that was written especially for her. Price became the first African-American prima donna to receive an international reputation, opening the opera season and a box-office sell-out. She was featured on the cover of Time magazine and was paid the highest fee for a woman vocalist. Because of her extraordinary talent, the Met included her in their national tour, which included the segregated South, and in 1964, after a two-year boycott of segregated houses, Price became the first African-American to sing in the Deep South. By 1970, Price had reduced her operatic performances, and in the next two decades, she focused on recitals and concerts both in the US and abroad. In 1985, after 21 seasons with the Met, 16 roles, and 201 performances, she made her operatic farewell in her most recognized role of Aida, for which she received 25 minutes of a standing ovation. She continued performing in recitals that included operatic arias, French melodies, and spirituals. She also gave masterclasses at Juilliard and other schools and recorded numerous award-winning albums. In 1997, at the age of 70, Price officially retired from the stage, but four years later, she made one last performance in a memorial concert for the victims of the September 11 attacks, singing her favorite spiritual, This Little Light of Mine. Read more...

Born Artis Shreve in North Buxton, Canada, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan. From an early age, she showed interest in art, and during high school, she painted her classmates’ portraits. After graduation, she got a scholarship to the Ontario College of Art in Toronto, Ontario. After receiving her degree, she married Bill Lane, and the couple moved to Detroit, Michigan. She continued her education at Cranbrook Academy of Art, the first woman to be admitted to the institute, and supported her family by painting portraits. Soon, her reputation as a portrait artist grew, receiving commissions from prominent figures, such as Michigan Governor George Romney, Detroit’s mayor Coleman Young, and members of the Ford family. Upon her divorce, she moved to NYC, NY, and met her second husband, Vince Cannon. After spending some time in Texas and New Mexico, she settled in Los Angeles, CA, working with Universal Studios and becoming the portrait painter of celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, Nancy Kissinger, and President John F. Kennedy. During the 1970s, the civil rights movement influenced Lane’s work, and she began to depict social issues in her art, as can be seen in the painting Tear on the Face of America. With time, Lane’s art expanded to various mediums, such as oil painting, sketching, and collage. It became more figurative and universal, reflecting her vision of metaphysical truth rather than the specific feature of the persons she depicts. Among the portraits and sculptures of notable people she created are Dorothy Height, Mary McLeod Bethune, Aretha Franklin, Oprah Winfrey, and former President Barack Obama. Two of her most known works are a bronze bust of Sojourner Truth in the US Capitol, which upon its unveiling in 2009 by First Lady Michelle Obama, it became the first statue in the Capitol honoring a Black woman. The second is the bust she created of her great, great aunt, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, which stands in Canada since 2009. Read more...

Ángela Peralta was born in Mexico City, Mexico. Her musical talent was noticeable from a young age, performing solo cavatina from the opera Belisario when she was 8 years old. She continued to sharpen her operatic skills, and at 15, Peralta made her operatic debut at the Teatro Nacional – Mexico’s premier opera house. Soon, she became known for her expressive timbre voice and high pitch range. After her successful show, Peralta traveled to Italy with her father to study singing, and in 1862, at the age of 17, she performed at the La Scala opera house in Milan. In the next two years, Peralta sang in the most prestigious opera houses in the world, including Rome, Lisbon, Madrid, St. Petersburg, and Cairo. During this tour, she became known as the Mexican Nightingale. In 1865, the 20 years old opera singer received a formal request from the Second Mexican Empire to return to her home country and sing in the National Imperial Theatre. In the following year, Peralta performed for Maximilian I of Mexico and Charlotte of Belgium and was named Chamber Singer of the Empire. In that same year, Peralta returned to Europe, making stops along the way to perform in major cities, such as NYC and Havana. On her arrival in Madrid, she married her cousin, Eugenio Castera. Peralta was also an accomplished pianist, harpist, and composer. After her wedding, she took some time off from singing and composed various songs and piano pieces, including waltzes, fantasies, and gallops. In 1871, at the age of 26, Peralta founded a touring opera company, where she often sang her most known roles of Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and Amina in La Sonnambula. In 1877, her husband died, and she began a relationship with her manager Julián Montiel y Duarte. The affair caused a scandal in Mexico City’s social elite, who boycotted her performances and paid hecklers to interrupt her shows. Though she managed to recover her reputation, Peralta made a vow to never perform in Mexico City again. In 1883, Peralta went on a tour in northern Mexico. When she arrived in Mazatlán, she and 76 of her company members contracted yellow fever. On her deathbed, she married her longtime lover, able only to nod to show her agreement. She died in her hotel room at the age of 38. In 1937, more than 50 years after she passed away, her remains were disinterred and moved from Mazatlán to the Panteón in Mexico City. Read more...