In the early 20th century, institutional barriers deeply limited opportunities for women artists. In Paris, the world’s art capital, the prestigious state-sponsored École des Beaux-Arts did not admit women until 1897, and even then, their education was restricted. An important element of academic training was life drawing from nude models, which was considered essential for creating large-scale history paintings, the most respected artistic genre. However, female students were largely barred from these classes, a policy rooted in societal notions of female modesty. This exclusion effectively prevented women from mastering the skills required to compete with male artists in the highest echelons of the art world. This historical reality forms the basis of Ettie’s artistic journey. Tartuffe’s lie that women are not allowed in the Académie at all is a cruel exaggeration of a real systemic bias, designed to keep her isolated and dependent.

Despite the systemic barriers they faced, several women artists gained acclaim at the turn of the century. One of the most significant figures from this era is Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), whose paintings Ettie and Peggy discuss in the novel. Although she trained in traditional methods at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and New York’s Art Students League, she made major contributions to modern art through her experimental, abstract approach. She challenged viewers to consider everyday subjects from a new perspective through her paintings and charcoal sketches, particularly her “radical depictions of flowers” (“About Georgia O’Keeffe,” Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, 2026).

Other female artists lacked access to formal training and, like Ettie, found unconventional ways to educate themselves. For example, Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938) began her career in the 1880s as a model for artists like Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec, studying their techniques before becoming a celebrated painter in her own right. She became a full-time painter at age 44 and held her first solo exhibition two years later. Her work stands out among other painters of her era because she painted female nudes of “unidealized, active women, challenging the convention of the sexualized, passive female body” (“Suzanne Valandon,” National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2026). Like Valadon, Ettie forges her own artistic identity outside the established system. Her secret life as a forger becomes a radical response to a world designed to exclude her, making her success both a deception and a triumph over historical constraints. In The Artist and the Feast, Steeds uses the story of the fictional Ettie to celebrate the skill and strength of the real women artists who defied systemic misogyny at the turn of the 20th century.