Rosa Bonheur was born in Bordeaux exactly 200 years ago, in 1822. Her mother was a piano teacher and her father was a landscape painter. When she didn’t excel at traditional schooling, Bonheur’s dad began teaching her to draw. With much fanfare he brought live animals into the family studio space and the little Bonheur made sketches of sheep, cows, goats, and rabbits. She was soon examining other animals in the pastures around Paris. Through her career, Bonheur remained committed to expressing the souls of animals in both large and small canvases of wonder. This major retrospective celebrates the bicentenary of her birth. —Elena Clavarino