GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The daughter of a Pittsburgh broker, Mary Cassatt was born into a privileged American home in 1844. She was first introduced to art during her childhood travels throughout Europe, eventually enrolling at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia at the age of 16. She began her early education like many artists her age by copying antique casts from the Academy’s collection. Her parents were initially unenthused about her artistic career due to the negative social stigma associated with women artists, but they eventually allowed her to move to Paris with her mother in 1865 to study. Though women could not yet attend the École des Beaux-Arts—the most prestigious art school in Paris—Cassatt trained privately with Academic members and leading Salon painters, including Jean-Leon Gérome, Charles Chaplin, and Thomas Couture. She supplemented her education by copying paintings at the Louvre, an activity that provided an invaluable social and professional space for women who were excluded from the Parisian cafés where male artists frequently socialized. After a sixteen-month sojourn to America during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871, Cassatt returned to Europe to paint and copy works in the museums of Parma, Madrid, Seville, Antwerp, and Rome.
In 1874, she settled with her sister in Paris, where she worked as a portrait and genre painter specializing in depictions of women in posh interiors. While in Paris she was highly influenced by the work of Gustave Courbet and Edgar Degas, eventually developing her own innovative style that broke with academic tradition. After Cassatt was rejected from the Salon for three consecutive years (1875, 1876, and 1877), Degas invited her to exhibit with the Impressionist group, an action that marked the beginning of a supportive and fruitful forty-year friendship. Cassatt exhibited with the Impressionists in 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886 and was highly influenced by their work as she began exploring pastels and printmaking. Her paintings continued to spotlight mothers, children, and the concept of the modern woman.
After 1886, the year of the last Impressionist exhibition, Cassatt began revising and experimenting with her Impressionist style. In 1891, the Galerie Durand-Ruel mounted her first solo exhibition, which featured innovative color prints and paintings, and she continued to exhibit her works across Europe and America. In 1904 she was awarded the prestigious Legion of Honor in France, and contemporary critics referred to her as “the most eminent of all living American women painters.” Cassatt’s production slowed after she developed cataracts, and by 1914, she was forced to give up printmaking and painting completely due to her failing eyesight. She died in 1926 and is remembered today as an important member of the French Impressionist group and, through her position as an advisor to American collectors, for her significant role in the appreciation of avant-garde French painting in the United States.
Excerpt from
Kelsey Martin and Nicole Myers, DMA exhibition text Women Artists in Europe from the Monarchy to Modernism, 2018.
NOTES
Added geographies to constituent record.
- born- May 22, 1844, Allegheny City, PA
- trained- Philadelphia, 1860-1866, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- trained- (multiple places in France ), 1866-1870, studied in Paris with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Charles Chaplin, with Paul Soyer in Ecouen, with Thomas Couture in Villiers-le-Bel, and Charles Bellay in Rome.
- Altoona, PA- 1870- Cassatt returned to the U.S. at the start of the Franco-Prussian War.
- Chicago, IL- 1871- Cassatt attempted to start a career in this city but ended up losing paintings in the Great Chicago Fire.
- Parma, italy- 1871- Archbishop of Pittsburgh commissioned her to copy two Correggio paintings.
- Seville, Spain- 1872-1873
- Madrid, Spain- 1872-1873
- worked in- Paris, 1874-1894
- worked in- Le Mesnil-Théribus, 1894-1926, bought Château de Beaufresne in 1894.
- worked in- Egypt- 1910
- died- June 14, 1926- Chateau de Beaufresne (near Paris)- buried at family vault at Le Mesnil-Theribus, France
Removed %PictionMW tag because the UMO for the Cassatt portrait was already on this note.
Marked as #draft- 11/17/2016.
Mary Cassatt is categorized, along with John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, as one of the leading 19th-century American expatriate artists. Although she spent much of her adult life in Paris, Cassatt always considered herself an American artist, and she campaigned tirelessly to introduce the French impressionists to American audiences.
Born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, Cassatt traveled extensively with her family through Europe and learned both German and French at an early age. Between 1861 and 1865 she attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Following her graduation, she embarked for Paris. Initially training her hand and eye by copying works of art in museums, she also enrolled in studies under Charles Chaplin. Chaplin's style conflicted with Cassatt's strong interests in modernity, naturalness, and vivid color and light that she saw in artists such as Edouard Manet. Later, after a brief return to the United States, she spent time in: Italy at the Parma Art Academy studying the works of Correggio; Seville, Spain, where she was exposed to the work of Diego Velasquez and the Spanish realists; and the Low Countries where she studied the work of Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Hals.
Cassatt returned to France in 1872, and one of her paintings was included in the Paris Salon that year, where it came to the attention of Edgar Degas. He offered her informal critiques and advice, and they formed a close friendship that lasted until his death in 1917. During the 1870s Cassatt's palette became lighter and her brushwork more fluid. Cassatt's treatment of high key colors and emphasis on light effects mark her work as typically impressionistic. Like her impressionist peers, she also drew on Realist ideas exemplified by Manet and Gustave Courbet— insisting on the importance of three-dimensional form and subjects seen in her daily life. By 1877 Degas invited her to show with the impressionists, then known as "The Independents." Cassatt was the only American member of the French impressionist group, and she participated in their group exhibitions until 1881.
Her style changed in 1890 when she was influenced by an exhibition of Japanese prints. In response to this show, she produced a set of ten color etchings which incorporated a Japanese approach to line and arrangement of flat color areas. In 1891 she had her first one-artist show at Durand-Ruel Gallery and publicly debuted her prints.
The majority of Cassatt's works are portraits and figure studies; however, she is best known for her tender and insightful portrayals of mothers with children. Her exploration of the domestic realm and her particular emphasis on maternal themes mark some of her best work. Cassatt's developing interest in motherhood reflected a significant change in child-rearing customs at the time. In the past, children were routinely raised by a series of wet nurses and governesses. The new practice emphasized the benefits experienced by children who were nursed by their natural mothers and raised by their own parents.
Cassatt had a tremendous impact upon the development of modern art in both France and the United States. She tirelessly promoted cutting-edge painting to wealthy American patrons, who then made purchases based on her recommendation. Many of these collections now form the nuclei of the great treasure troves of impressionist art in US museums. From such important American collectors as Mrs. Pouer Palmer and Mrs. Havemeyer she enjoyed loyal patronage, receiving through Mrs. Palmer a commission for a mural at the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and eventually assisting Mrs. Havemeyer with the formation of her collection (now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Cassatt spent her adult life in Paris and at the Chateau Beaufresne at Mesnil-Theribus. After 1911 she suffered severe eye trouble and was forced to stop working by 1914. She lived her remaining twelve years pursuing her interest in politics and advising young art students.
Compiled by/Author Emily Schiller
Adapted from
- Eleanor Jones Harvey, "Mary Cassatt's Sleepy Baby," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1997), 244.
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (1952.38.M), May 2006.
- Gail Davitt, DMA biographical research essay, Education files, 1986-1987.
- Steven Nash, Dallas Collects American Paintings: Colonial to Modern (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), 99-100.
- P.F.R., DMA research essay (Sleepy Baby), Collections records object file, n.d.
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AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
265933210: UMO. [Caption] Self-portrait by Mary Cassat in 1878. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wikimedia Commons, accessed July 15, 2016.
Tag added- 11/17/2016.
WEB RESOURCES
- Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844-1926)~Read H. Barbara Weinberg's biographical essay and see more examples of her work through the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
- Americans in Paris, 1860-1900~Read H. Barbara Weinberg's essay about this group of expatriate artists on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
- Mary Cassatt: A Woman's World (Antiques & Fine Art)~Read William H. Gerdts' informative review of the 2008 exhibition, Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Collections of Ambroise Vollard (2008, Adelson Galleries, New York, NY).
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Mary Cassatt is a distant cousin of Robert Henri, who became a leading artist and teacher in the US after the turn-of-the-century.
- Mary Cassatt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the same time as Thomas Eakins, who went on to be the school's director and continually advocated for women artists to be trained with the same methods and resources as male artists. Months after Cassatt secured a position studying in Jean-Leon Gerome's Parisian studio, the master artist also accepted Eakins as a student.
- Along with her friend Elizabeth Jane Gardner whose work was accepted the same year, Mary Cassatt became one of the first American women to have art exhibited at the annual Salon in Paris in 1868.
- At the age of 50, Cassatt purchased Château de Beaufresne in a small town outside of Paris. The home's name Beaufresne, refers to the "Beautiful Ash [trees]" that grow on the property. She and her family lived there for over three decades.
- When she arrived in Paris in 1866, Mary Cassatt could not enroll at the École des Beaux Arts because the school did not admit women.
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General Description
The daughter of a Pittsburgh broker, Mary Cassatt was born into a privileged American home in 1844. She was first introduced to art during her childhood travels throughout Europe, eventually enrolling at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia at the age of 16. She began her early education like many artists her age by copying antique casts from the Academy’s collection. Her parents were initially unenthused about her artistic career due to the negative social stigma associated with women artists, but they eventually allowed her to move to Paris with her mother in 1865 to study. Though women could not yet attend the École des Beaux-Arts—the most prestigious art school in Paris—Cassatt trained privately with Academic members and leading Salon painters, including Jean-Leon Gérome, Charles Chaplin, and Thomas Couture. She supplemented her education by copying paintings at the Louvre, an activity that provided an invaluable social and professional space for women who were excluded from the Parisian cafés where male artists frequently socialized. After a sixteen-month sojourn to America during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871, Cassatt returned to Europe to paint and copy works in the museums of Parma, Madrid, Seville, Antwerp, and Rome.
In 1874, she settled with her sister in Paris, where she worked as a portrait and genre painter specializing in depictions of women in posh interiors. While in Paris she was highly influenced by the work of Gustave Courbet and Edgar Degas, eventually developing her own innovative style that broke with academic tradition. After Cassatt was rejected from the Salon for three consecutive years (1875, 1876, and 1877), Degas invited her to exhibit with the Impressionist group, an action that marked the beginning of a supportive and fruitful forty-year friendship. Cassatt exhibited with the Impressionists in 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886 and was highly influenced by their work as she began exploring pastels and printmaking. Her paintings continued to spotlight mothers, children, and the concept of the modern woman.
After 1886, the year of the last Impressionist exhibition, Cassatt began revising and experimenting with her Impressionist style. In 1891, the Galerie Durand-Ruel mounted her first solo exhibition, which featured innovative color prints and paintings, and she continued to exhibit her works across Europe and America. In 1904 she was awarded the prestigious Legion of Honor in France, and contemporary critics referred to her as “the most eminent of all living American women painters.” Cassatt’s production slowed after she developed cataracts, and by 1914, she was forced to give up printmaking and painting completely due to her failing eyesight. She died in 1926 and is remembered today as an important member of the French Impressionist group and, through her position as an advisor to American collectors, for her significant role in the appreciation of avant-garde French painting in the United States.
Excerpt from
Kelsey Martin and Nicole Myers, DMA exhibition text Women Artists in Europe from the Monarchy to Modernism, 2018.
Fun Facts
- Mary Cassatt is a distant cousin of Robert Henri, who became a leading artist and teacher in the US after the turn-of-the-century.
- Mary Cassatt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts at the same time as Thomas Eakins, who went on to be the school's director and continually advocated for women artists to be trained with the same methods and resources as male artists. Months after Cassatt secured a position studying in Jean-Leon Gerome's Parisian studio, the master artist also accepted Eakins as a student.
- Along with her friend Elizabeth Jane Gardner whose work was accepted the same year, Mary Cassatt became one of the first American women to have art exhibited at the annual Salon in Paris in 1868.
- At the age of 50, Cassatt purchased Château de Beaufresne in a small town outside of Paris. The home's name Beaufresne, refers to the "Beautiful Ash [trees]" that grow on the property. She and her family lived there for over three decades.
- When she arrived in Paris in 1866, Mary Cassatt could not enroll at the École des Beaux Arts because the school did not admit women.
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844-1926)~Read H. Barbara Weinberg's biographical essay and see more examples of her work through the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History (The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
- Americans in Paris, 1860-1900~Read H. Barbara Weinberg's essay about this group of expatriate artists on the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.
- Mary Cassatt: A Woman's World (Antiques & Fine Art)~Read William H. Gerdts' informative review of the 2008 exhibition, Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Collections of Ambroise Vollard (2008, Adelson Galleries, New York, NY).
Notes
Added geographies to constituent record.
- born- May 22, 1844, Allegheny City, PA
- trained- Philadelphia, 1860-1866, studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
- trained- (multiple places in France ), 1866-1870, studied in Paris with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Charles Chaplin, with Paul Soyer in Ecouen, with Thomas Couture in Villiers-le-Bel, and Charles Bellay in Rome.
- Altoona, PA- 1870- Cassatt returned to the U.S. at the start of the Franco-Prussian War.
- Chicago, IL- 1871- Cassatt attempted to start a career in this city but ended up losing paintings in the Great Chicago Fire.
- Parma, italy- 1871- Archbishop of Pittsburgh commissioned her to copy two Correggio paintings.
- Seville, Spain- 1872-1873
- Madrid, Spain- 1872-1873
- worked in- Paris, 1874-1894
- worked in- Le Mesnil-Théribus, 1894-1926, bought Château de Beaufresne in 1894.
- worked in- Egypt- 1910
- died- June 14, 1926- Chateau de Beaufresne (near Paris)- buried at family vault at Le Mesnil-Theribus, France
Removed %PictionMW tag because the UMO for the Cassatt portrait was already on this note.
Marked as #draft- 11/17/2016.
Mary Cassatt is categorized, along with John Singer Sargent and James McNeill Whistler, as one of the leading 19th-century American expatriate artists. Although she spent much of her adult life in Paris, Cassatt always considered herself an American artist, and she campaigned tirelessly to introduce the French impressionists to American audiences.
Born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, Cassatt traveled extensively with her family through Europe and learned both German and French at an early age. Between 1861 and 1865 she attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Following her graduation, she embarked for Paris. Initially training her hand and eye by copying works of art in museums, she also enrolled in studies under Charles Chaplin. Chaplin's style conflicted with Cassatt's strong interests in modernity, naturalness, and vivid color and light that she saw in artists such as Edouard Manet. Later, after a brief return to the United States, she spent time in: Italy at the Parma Art Academy studying the works of Correggio; Seville, Spain, where she was exposed to the work of Diego Velasquez and the Spanish realists; and the Low Countries where she studied the work of Peter Paul Rubens and Frans Hals.
Cassatt returned to France in 1872, and one of her paintings was included in the Paris Salon that year, where it came to the attention of Edgar Degas. He offered her informal critiques and advice, and they formed a close friendship that lasted until his death in 1917. During the 1870s Cassatt's palette became lighter and her brushwork more fluid. Cassatt's treatment of high key colors and emphasis on light effects mark her work as typically impressionistic. Like her impressionist peers, she also drew on Realist ideas exemplified by Manet and Gustave Courbet— insisting on the importance of three-dimensional form and subjects seen in her daily life. By 1877 Degas invited her to show with the impressionists, then known as "The Independents." Cassatt was the only American member of the French impressionist group, and she participated in their group exhibitions until 1881.
Her style changed in 1890 when she was influenced by an exhibition of Japanese prints. In response to this show, she produced a set of ten color etchings which incorporated a Japanese approach to line and arrangement of flat color areas. In 1891 she had her first one-artist show at Durand-Ruel Gallery and publicly debuted her prints.
The majority of Cassatt's works are portraits and figure studies; however, she is best known for her tender and insightful portrayals of mothers with children. Her exploration of the domestic realm and her particular emphasis on maternal themes mark some of her best work. Cassatt's developing interest in motherhood reflected a significant change in child-rearing customs at the time. In the past, children were routinely raised by a series of wet nurses and governesses. The new practice emphasized the benefits experienced by children who were nursed by their natural mothers and raised by their own parents.
Cassatt had a tremendous impact upon the development of modern art in both France and the United States. She tirelessly promoted cutting-edge painting to wealthy American patrons, who then made purchases based on her recommendation. Many of these collections now form the nuclei of the great treasure troves of impressionist art in US museums. From such important American collectors as Mrs. Pouer Palmer and Mrs. Havemeyer she enjoyed loyal patronage, receiving through Mrs. Palmer a commission for a mural at the 1892 Columbian Exposition in Chicago and eventually assisting Mrs. Havemeyer with the formation of her collection (now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art).
Cassatt spent her adult life in Paris and at the Chateau Beaufresne at Mesnil-Theribus. After 1911 she suffered severe eye trouble and was forced to stop working by 1914. She lived her remaining twelve years pursuing her interest in politics and advising young art students.
Compiled by/Author Emily Schiller
Adapted from
- Eleanor Jones Harvey, "Mary Cassatt's Sleepy Baby," in Dallas Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collection, ed. Charles Venable (New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press, 1997), 244.
- William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy (1952.38.M), May 2006.
- Gail Davitt, DMA biographical research essay, Education files, 1986-1987.
- Steven Nash, Dallas Collects American Paintings: Colonial to Modern (Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1982), 99-100.
- P.F.R., DMA research essay (Sleepy Baby), Collections records object file, n.d.
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