...Willie Betty Newman , a Nashville painter still struggling to emerge from the shadows cast by her male contemporaries of the late 19th century. In Newman’s case, her art was good enough to be included in the prestigious Paris Salons of the 1890s but today hangs primarily in private collections rather than public museums. And while Newman was the only artist from Tennessee listed in the 1910 Who’s Who in America, her name merits only a line in most art reference books today—if it even appears at all.
While attending Cincinnati School of Art in 1885, she won a 3-year scholarship to the Académie Julian in Paris, which she attended from 1890 to 1893. During her first year in Paris, one of her works was selected for the Salon of 1891—a rare honor for an American student, male or female. The Salons were annual exhibits officially sanctioned by the French National Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and inclusion was every American artist’s dream at the time (though the institution was held in increasing disregard by Europe’s emerging modern art movement). Newman would go on to exhibit in six more Salons during her 12 years in Paris.
...Tellingly, all of the works included in the Parthenon retrospective, with the exception of a few formal portraits of prominent Tennesseans, are paintings Newman completed while still living in Europe. These views of Venetian canals and French village life reflect both the popular art trends of Newman’s day, including Impressionism, and the artist’s own passion for exploring the possibilities of light and color. In “Golden Hour in Venice,” for example, Newman’s use of vivid blue and orange to depict the play of light on boats and gondolas in a Venice canal represents the clash of complementary colors that is a hallmark of Impressionism. Newman painted this and several other works during the summer of 1895, when she lived in Venice.
(http://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/article/13006747/an-artist-reclaimed)