• Rosa Bonheur (French, 1822-99) achieved wealth and fame even in her youth as a superb painter, mainly of animals. She dressed in men’s attire in order to inspect stables and slaughterhouses, and in 1857 was given a legal permit for this attire. She and her lifelong companion Nathalie Micas shared a chateau where they maintained a cageless animal refuge for countless species from parakeets to lions. Micas, a minor artist in her own right, was also a noted mechanical inventor. Bonheur’s portrayals of the animal kingdom are widely considered to be definitive, revealing her passion for, and careful study of all creatures. The painter was small and rotund, described as something of an eccentric, deliberately unpolished character, and was decorated, supported, and adored by the French people throughout her long life.
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Rosa Bonheur postcard

From Women Making History: The Revolutionary Feminist Postcard Art of Helaine Victoria Press by Julia M. Allen and Jocelyn H. Cohen

  • The first Bonheur postcard was part of the Kitchen Table series 1973. In 1974, when Jocelyn Cohen and Nancy Poore learned to print on an offset press at California Institute of the Arts, they reprinted Bonheur as part of the run of nine postcards in sepia 4 ¼” x 6”. For this third printing, they changed from the etching to a photograph. They printed this jumbo 5 ½” x 7¼” at Cal Arts on the Rotaprint offset press in purple. Helaine Victoria Press reprinted this card offset four more times over the years.
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