1. American Female Impressionist 1844-1926
Mary Cassatt
American Female Impressionist
Born in Pennsylvania. Father was a well to do stockbroker and real estate owner. Mary’s mother was from a wealthy banking family. Mary was one of seven children, 2 of which died in infancy. The family traveled and lived overseas on and off for 10 years during Mary’s adolescence. At age 15, she enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was the first year of the civil war in the US.

2. 1878
Self-portrait
Mary’s family didn’t want her to become an artist. Her parents didn’t want her exposed to feminist ideas and bohemian behavior. For a woman, art was seen as a social skill not a career. In 1866 Mary moved to Paris. She took art lessons and copied museum pieces but women were not allowed to use models or go to the cafes where the male artists gathered.

3. 1878 Little Girl in a Blue Armchair
Cassatt meet the artist Edward Degas in Paris. Degas was an impressionist and a noted artist. Impressionist painting was becoming popular in Paris and Cassatt studied the Impressionist’s work . Degas approved this painting of Cassatt’s, in fact, he may have even painted some of the background. Japanese prints were popular at this time and you can see how Mary cropped the scene in that Asian style.

4. “I have touched with the sense of art some people – they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that for an artist?”
Mary Cassatt
Young Woman sewing in a Garden 1886
This painting is hanging in the Louvre in Paris. The same museum where Cassatt copied the “masters” and learned to paint!
Impressionists often painted outside.
Cassatt wanted to celebrate women. She wanted to celebrate their daily lives. She painted women more than any other subject.
What are some of the things you do every day?

5. The Letter
Letter writing was an important part of everyday life. Women were often responsible for keeping in touch with family members by writing letters. The drop leaf desk in this print still belongs to the artist’s family.
You can see how the style of this print was influenced by the popular Japanese prints of this period. Notice the patterns on the wallpaper as well as the woman’s dress.
Do you like this print? Why or why not?

6. The Bath, 1892
What feeling does the cropping of the painting give the viewer? (intimate, absorption in a task) How many different patterns do you see?
Cassatt had many wealthy friends. She would often help people buy impressionist work for their collections and had been a consultant for various collectors. She definitely had ties to the upper crust of society. Her brother owned a railway company and was married to the niece of the US president.

7. The Boating Party
The flat planes and simplified color makes this painting the most “Japanese” of all of her paintings.
Where do all of the lines converge?? (at the child and mother)

8. 1900 Spring: Margot Standing in the Garden
Margot was a neighbor’s daughter and a model for many of Cassatt’s paintings. She liked to use the same children as models because they got used to her and the process of sitting for a painting.

9. Young Mother Sewing 1902
Cassatt celebrated womanhood and maternity in her art. She was considered a feminist at the time.
Do you think that Cassatt was successful at celebrating women’s lives?
What were Cassatt’s paintings about?
What do they teach you about this time period?
Sadly as Cassatt began to age, she lost her eyesight and she was no longer able to paint. She has to quit painting around 1910 and she died in 1926.