Our Spring Art History 101 Blog celebrates an iconic artist’s birthday! We’re honoring American Impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt just in time for her May 22nd Birthday.

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. She often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children. We hope you enjoy this brief history and stunning paintings, courtesy of marycassatt.org.

Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh. She was born into favorable circumstances: her father, Robert Simpson Cassatt, was a successful stockbroker and land speculator, and her mother, Katherine Kelso Johnston, came from a banking family. She also had talented artists in her family! One of her distant cousins was the renowned artist, Robert Henri. (Tip for artists: read his book, The Art Spirit). 🙂

Cassatt’s family moved eastward, first to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, then to the Philadelphia area, where she began schooling at age six. Even though her family objected to her becoming a professional artist, Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the early age of 15, and continued her studies during the years of the American Civil War. About 20% of the students were female. Though most were not bent on making a career of art, they viewed art as a valid means of achievement and recognition, and a socially valuable talent. Cassatt, instead, was determined to become a professional artist. #BossBabe

Impatient with the slow pace of instruction and the patronizing attitude of the male students and teachers, she decided to study the old masters on her own. She later said, “There was no teaching” at the Academy. Female students could not use live models (until somewhat later) and the principal training was primarily drawing from casts.

After ending her studies there, she moved to Paris, with her mother and family friends acting as chaperones. Since women could not yet attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, she applied to study privately with masters from the school. Clearly skilled, she was accepted to study with Jean-Leon Gerome, a highly regarded teacher known for his hyper-realistic technique and his depiction of exotic subjects.

Toward the end of 1866, she joined a painting class taught by Charles Chaplin, a noted genre artist. In 1868, Cassatt also studied with artist Thomas Couture, whose subjects were mostly romantic and urban. On trips to the countryside, the students drew from life, particularly the peasants going about their daily activities. In 1868 one of her paintings, A Mandolin Player, was accepted for the first time by the selection jury for the Paris Salon.

“A Mandolin Player”

Returning to the United States in the late summer of 1870 (as the Franco-Prussian War was starting), Cassatt lived with her family in Altoona. Her father continued to resist her chosen vocation, and paid for her basic needs, but not her art supplies. She placed two of her paintings in a New York gallery and found many admirers but no purchasers. She was also dismayed at the lack of paintings to study while staying at her summer residence. Cassatt even considered giving up art, as she was determined to make an independent living. She wrote in a letter of July, 1871, “I have given up my studio & torn up my father’s portrait, & have not touched a brush for six weeks nor ever will again until I see some prospect of getting back to Europe. I am very anxious to go out west next fall & get some employment, but I have not yet decided where.”

Within months of her return to Europe in the autumn of 1871, Cassatt’s prospects had brightened. Her painting,Two Women Throwing Flowers During Carnival, was well received in the Salon of 1872, and was purchased.

“Two Women Throwing Flowers During Carnival”

Cassatt continued to express criticism of the politics of the Salon and the conventional taste that prevailed there. She saw that works by female artists were often dismissed with contempt unless the artist had a friend or protector on the jury, and she would not flirt with jurors to curry favor. Her cynicism grew when one of the two pictures she submitted in 1875 was refused by the jury, only to be accepted the following year after she darkened the background. Out of her distress and self-criticism, Cassatt decided that she needed to move away from genre paintings and onto more fashionable subjects, in order to attract portrait commissions from American socialites abroad, but that attempt bore little fruit at first.

At this low point in her career, she was invited by Edgar Degas to show her works with the Impressionists, a group that had begun their own series of independent exhibitions in 1874 with much attendant notoriety. Degas had considerable influence on Cassatt. She became extremely proficient in the use of pastels, eventually creating many of her most important works in this medium. Degas also introduced her to copper engraving, of which he was a recognized master, which strengthened her control of line and overall draftsmanship.

The Impressionist exhibit of 1879 was the most successful to date. The success came despite the absence of Renoir, Sisley, Manet and Cezanne, who were attempting once again to gain recognition at the Salon. Through the efforts of Gustave Caillebotte, who organized and underwrote the show, the group made a profit and sold many works, although the criticism continued as harsh as ever.

Cassatt displayed eleven works, including In the Loge. Although critics claimed that Cassatt’s colors were too bright and that her portraits were too accurate to be flattering to the subjects, her work was not savaged as was Monet’s, whose circumstances were the most desperate of all the Impressionists at that time. She used her share of the profits to purchase a work by Degas and one by Monet. She exhibited in the Impressionist Exhibitions that followed in 1880 and 1881, and she remained an active member of the Impressionist circle until 1886.

“In the Loge”

Much of her vast collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She also made several portraits of family members during that period, of which Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and His Son Robert Kelso (1885) is one of her best regarded. Cassatt’s style then evolved, and she moved away from Impressionism to a simpler, more straightforward approach. She began to exhibit her works in New York galleries as well. After 1886, Cassatt no longer identified herself with any art movement and experimented with a variety of techniques.

“Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and His Son Robert Kelso”

Cassatt’s popular reputation is based on an extensive series of rigorously drawn, tenderly observed, yet largely unsentimental paintings and prints on the theme of the mother and child. The earliest dated work on this subject is the drypoint Gardner Held by His Mother. After 1900, she concentrated almost exclusively on mother-and-child subjects.

“Gardner Held by His Mother”

Can’t get enough of Cassatt? Please enjoy the brief YouTube video below, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.

We hope you were inspired learning about this masterful artist and her work! Now, we’d love to hear from you. Please leave a comment below. Thanks!

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