Uemura Tsune (aka Uemura Shōen) was born in 1875 to a newly-single mom in the Kyoto, Japan.

Uemura's father died two months before her birth, leaving Mrs. Uemura to raise their daughter alone while running a local tea shop where Uemura’s love affair with art began. Right after graduating elementary school, Uemura marched off to attend the first established Japanese art school, conveniently located in her hometown of Kyoto. She decided that this new-fangled way of learning wasn’t for her, though, and after a year of art school she left to apprentice with the artist Suzuki Shonen. There she studied the bijin-ga style of painting, which literally just consists of painting pretty women. When Uemura left Suzuki’s tutelage she changed her name to Shoen, in honor of her teacher.

By the time she was 15, Uemura was already a beast at painting and was exhibiting works, winning awards for them, and building a following of patrons. She even sold a work to Prince Arthur of Wales and Duke of Connaught at 15! If that doesn’t say badass, I don’t know what does. Uemura would go on to study under other great masters but eventually found herself back with Suzuki. Only, not as a student, at 27 years old she was impregnated by her former teacher. Suzuki never acknowledged the baby, mostly because he was already married with kids, so Uemura became a single mother.

Today, single moms aren’t uncommon, but in 1800s Japan Uemura raised A LOT of eyebrows. It didn’t help that she was a woman working in a male-dominated field. The sexist and prejudiced anger surrounding her success reared its ugly head in 1904 when her exhibition was vandalized. Instead of taking her works and running for the hills, Uemura asked that her works continue to be displayed as they were to show the truth of what she had to deal with daily. Way to stick it to the bullies, girl!

Uemura continued to stir up anger and accumulate awards, even when she went through a dark period in her 40s after she broke up with her lover. That was when she forced her competition to take her seriously by making them feel the anger she did through her works, which was unique to the bijin-ga style. In 1934, Uemura’s mother passed away and her work began to revolve around the relationship between moms and their babies. Some of the works during this period were inspired by her childhood memories of her own mommy.

Uemura would pass away from cancer in 1947, but not before she committed her final act of awesomeness and became the first woman to ever earn the Order of Culture, an honor which her son would also receive. Uemura may have just painted pretty ladies, but she didn’t do it the way most people expected her to. She painted average everyday women and painted them the same way she would paint a princess: with elegance, poise, and grace. Her goal was to keep them beautiful while still conveying a quiet strength in their spirit. She did so much for everyday women and never once called herself a feminist , she simply lived her life as one. Talk about your thoroughly modern ladies.