La Vigerie, c. 1980s-2000s

The label attached verso indicates that the artist submitted the present work for the Art Students League 2005 Holiday Sale. The instructor is listed as D. Dickerson, which likely refers to Daniel Jay Dickerson, who taught at the league from 1978-1990. It is unclear whether this work was executed in the early 2000s or during the period when Dickerson was teaching at the institution.

Minou Burnham, also known as Lucienne J. Burnham, was a prolific, award-winning impressionist painter, as well as a devoted wife, mother, and proud grandmother with a deep and enduring passion for the arts. Born near France’s Loire Valley in the late 1920s, she moved with her family to Paris’s Latin Quarter during her childhood. A survivor of the Nazi occupation, she was honored by the U.S. Congress for her courageous work and contributions to the French Resistance in Paris during World War II.

As a teenager, while secretly aiding the Resistance, she also mingled in the cafés of St. Germain with prominent thinkers such as Sartre, Camus, and other existentialists. She met Picasso on several occasions, and though he once asked her to model for him, her mother swiftly declined on her behalf. During the war, her father and brother were deported by the Nazis to work in a bomb factory, but they managed to escape and went into hiding. Despite repeated visits from the Gestapo, Minou and her mother stood firm, and the family was ultimately reunited after the war.

Minou met her future husband, Harold Burnham, in Paris while he was completing a postgraduate master’s program in French literature through Middlebury College–l’Université Paris-Sorbonne. Following Harold’s service with the Army Medical Corps and the CIA in Paris, the couple moved to Maryland in 1965 so he could pursue a medical degree, later settling in Glen Cove, New York, where he completed his residency.

Minou’s artistic journey deepened when she began studying at The Art Students League of New York in 1977, a pursuit that continued until 2015. There, she trained under renowned artists such as John Howard Sanden, Oldrich Teply, and Hananiah Harari in portrait classes. A Life Member of the League, Minou’s works are held in numerous private collections across the United States, France, Spain, Monaco, and Switzerland. Inspired by the Impressionists, she found constant beauty in the ordinary moments of daily life.

In 1985, one of her seascapes depicting Orient Point, Long Island, was accepted into the *Salon d’Automne*, a prestigious juried exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris. The following year, her painting of Monet’s home and gardens in Giverny was also accepted to high praise. Minou went on to earn the Art Students League’s “Best in Show” awards in both 2001 and 2002, followed by the “First Best in Show” in 2003. The League later acquired six of her original paintings for its permanent collection. (Info sourced from Wilson's Dry Dock, Long Island Press, and the New York Times)