Overcoming All Obstacles: The Women of the Acad�mie Julian is the first book to examine late nineteenth-century Paris's most famous training ground for the leading women artists of the period. The Acad�mie Julian was founded in Paris in 1868, initially to prepare students for entry to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the nineteenth-century's preeminent art school. Because women could not study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts until 1897, Julian itself became an international equivalent for many of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century's most important women artists.Not only does Overcoming All Obstacles introduce the reader to many works by women artists-both famous and lesser known-but the essays offer a cultural and historical context in which to appreciate their art. Gabriel Weisberg's essay concentrates on the rigorous training methods enforced by Rodolphe Julian and the teachers at the Academy. Jane Becker explores the competitive environment of the Julian Academy as it affected the Ukrainian painter Marie Bashkirtseff and the Swiss painter Louise-Catherine Breslau. Essays by Catherine Fehrer, the leading scholar of the Acad�mie Julian, and Tamar Garb, an art historian who focuses on the training of women artists, give us a richer understanding of the Acad�mie Julian's place in the sphere of art education in late nineteenth-century Paris.Generously illustrated with both color and black-and-whit