Mary Cassatt

1844-1926

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was an American painter and printmaker who left Pennsylvania for Paris and made her career there, becoming the only American to exhibit regularly with the Impressionists. Trained first at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and then in Paris under academic masters, she grew frustrated with the Salon system and, in 1877, accepted Edgar Degas's invitation to join the independent Impressionist exhibitions. Her work turned toward looser brushwork, unusual vantage points, and everyday subjects, above all the private world of women and the bond between mother and child, rendered with unsentimental tenderness. Alongside Berthe Morisot and Marie Bracquemond she was counted among the movement's leading women. She was also a skilled printmaker, drawing on Japanese woodblock techniques, and used her position to steer American collectors, notably the Havemeyer family, toward Impressionist art. She was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour and later entered the National Women's Hall of Fame; her paintings hang today in major museums across the United States and Europe.