Mary Stevenson Cassatt
Mary Cassatt was born May 22, 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, and
died June 14, 1926 in Mesnil-Theribus, Oise, France.
(Don't you love the hat)
died June 14, 1926 in Mesnil-Theribus, Oise, France.
Cassatt was born and lived in the U.S.and began study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art at the age of 16 and then 5 years later she convinced her parents to let her go to Paris, France to study with Jean Leon Gerome.
When researching this article I googled Famous Women Impressionist Painters and a photo array of the work of about 8 or so famous female artists appeared. I was drawn instantly to her painting in the grouping. It was of a demure woman, beautifully dressed with beautiful light.
Cassatt lived at a time when "respectable" women were not serious artists, they were somewhat restricted in their movements as far as where they could or couldn't go and they didn't go abroad to live unaccompanied. Cassatt loved France because women were not quite as constrained as in the U.S.
Within 10 years Cassatt established herself in a studio and had a painting accepted into the 1872 Salon and for the next several years, but by 1875 she had fallen out of favor and she became disenchanted with the politics of the "official" art world.
This is when Edgar Degas took notice and took her into his circle of impressionist friends. They became close friends and often painted side by side. Cassatt met and was mentored by
Camille Pissarro, an older artist in the group.
Cassatt showed her work in 1879 with the impressionists and from there on out. In 1886 she was included in the first major exhibition of Impressionist art in the United States, held at the Durand-Ruel galleries in New York.
It has been said of Cassatt that she
painted domestic life in a way
men impressionists could not.
Because of her upbringing in an upper middle class family where her father was a very successful stockbroker and her mother was a member of a prominent banking family, she saw things differently than male artists of the day.
Her work consisted mainly of familial scenes, often of mother and child in every day activities. She also beautifully depicted other every day scenes of women at tea, at the opera or other female pursuits of the time. She also painted women reading newspapers, which again was not the norm for the time.
Cassatt never married but had a rich full career and has influenced artists and their work for years. The way she approached her subject matter and her skill are second to none.
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cassatt-mary.htm
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cassatt-mary.htm#influences_header
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I LOVE Mary's work. This was a delightful read.
ReplyDeleteYou know how fine an artist she must have been to be accepted by the top impressionists. All MALE.!!
Her work is stunning and thought provoking and yes, to have been accepted into that male world must have been quite the shock to everyone.
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