Mary Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker who was a member of the Impressionist movement that produced art in and around Paris. She was born on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny City, which is now a part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and passed away on June 14, 1926, at Château de Beaufresne, close to Paris, France.
She focused almost entirely on the private lives of modern women, particularly in their capacities as mothers and caregivers. Cassatt was raised in Europe for five years as a small child; her father was a banker.
She had private art instruction in Philadelphia and attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1861 to 1865. However, she chose a less formal approach and left for Europe in 1866 to study under European painters such Thomas Couture and Jean-Léon Gérôme.
Four additional yearly Salon displays followed her 1872 Paris Salon debut, which was her first significant exhibition. Cassatt opened her studio in Paris in 1874, deciding to make the city her permanent home. She experimented and used vibrant colors that were influenced by the outdoors, just like the Impressionists.
She became friends with Edgar Degas, whose style, along with Gustave Courbet’s, influenced her own. Her drawings in particular were reportedly greatly appreciated by Degas, who asked her to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1879 and again in 1880, 1881, and 1886.
Similar to Degas, Cassatt demonstrated exceptional sketching skill, and they both favored asymmetrical, unposed compositions. Cassatt’s use of the pastel medium was likewise creative and original. At first, Cassatt primarily painted Impressionist-style figures of acquaintances, family members, and their kids.
She released her series of ten colored prints, such as Woman Bathing and The Coiffure, following the significant exhibition of Japanese prints held in Paris in 1890. These works clearly show the influence of the Japanese masters Utamaro and Toyokuni.
Her combination of aquatint, drypoint, and soft ground in these etchings demonstrated her mastery in printmaking. She started focusing more on line and pattern than form. Mothers tending to little children is the main topic of her mature and possibly most well-known time, as seen by paintings such as The Child’s Bath (1893) and Mother and Child (Baby Getting Up from His Nap) (1889).
She bought a château near Le Mesnil-Théribus in 1894, and from then on she lived alternately in Paris and the country. Her vision started to deteriorate soon after 1900, and by 1914 she had given up her job.
More so than via her own artwork, Cassatt’s advocacy of Impressionist paintings to her rich American friends and relatives helped shape American taste for a long time. The majority of the pieces in the H.O. Havemeyer Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City were chosen by her.