Cassatt, Mary (Stevenson)
Cassatt, Mary (Stevenson)
- Nancy Mowll Mathews
Updated in this version
updated and revised
American painter and printmaker, active in France. One of the great American expatriates of the later 19th century (along with Sargent and Whistler), Cassatt was an active member of the Impressionist group in Paris and carved out a lasting international reputation for her famous “modern” representations of the mother and child (see fig.). Because of her success, her life and art have been closely examined to gain a better understanding of how gender affects artists during their lifetimes and afterwards in historical perspective.
1. Life and work.
Daughter of a Pittsburgh broker, Mary Stevenson Cassatt received a cultured upbringing and spent five years abroad as a child (1851–1855). In 1860, at the age of 16, she began classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and in 1865 sailed again for Europe. During the next four years she studied in and around Paris with such notables as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Charles Chaplin, and Thomas Couture. When she returned to Europe after sixteen months in the USA (1870–1871), she painted and copied in the museums of Parma, Madrid, Seville, Antwerp, and Rome, finally settling in Paris in 1874. Until 1878 she worked mainly as a portrait and genre painter, exhibiting regularly in the USA, particularly in Philadelphia, and had paintings accepted in the Paris Salons of 1868, 1870, and 1872–1876.
Cassatt’s study of Diego Velázquez and Peter Paul Rubens, coupled with her interest in the modern masters Couture, Gustave Courbet, and Edgar Degas, caused her to question the popular Salon masters of the 1870s and to develop her own increasingly innovative style. This led to rejection of some of her Salon entries in 1875 and 1877 but also prompted Degas to invite her to exhibit with the Impressionists. She made her debut with them at their fourth annual exhibition (1879), by which time she had mastered the Impressionist style and was accepted as a full-fledged member by artists and critics alike. She went on to participate in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1880, 1881, and 1886.
Cassatt was clear-sighted, confident, and sociable, traits that served her well in modernist art circles. Much of this confidence came from her upbringing in one of the most successful post–Civil War American families—her brothers Alexander and Gardner rose to prominence in railroads and investment banking in Philadelphia. Like Degas’s family in New Orleans, their industries had benefited from a slave-labor economy before abolition and then the postwar industrialization boom. Family members traveled easily between Paris and Philadelphia and often figure in Cassatt’s Impressionist portraits and scenes of daily life during this period (e.g. Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly, 1880; New York, Met.).
Cassatt began to revise her Impressionist style in the 1880s, and after the last Impressionist exhibition (1886) she developed a refined draftsmanship in her pastels, prints, and oil paintings. After exhibiting with the new Société des Peintres-Graveurs in 1889 and 1890, she had her first individual exhibition of color prints and paintings in 1891 at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris. In 1892 she was invited to paint a large tympanum mural, Modern Woman, for the Woman’s Building at the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago, 1893). Although the mural itself is now lost, many paintings (e.g. Nude Baby Reaching for an Apple, 1893; Richmond, VA, Mus. F.A.), prints (e.g. Gathering Fruit, drypoint with aquatint, c. 1895), and pastels (e.g. Banjo Lesson, 1894; Richmond, VA Mus. F.A.) based on Cassatt’s mural designs reflect her concept of modern woman “plucking the fruits of knowledge or science.” She exhibited these in her first major retrospective exhibition in 1893 at Durand-Ruel’s gallery in Paris and again in 1895 at his gallery in New York.
Cassatt’s success in Europe and the USA was such that in 1894 she was able to purchase the Château de Beaufresne in Le Mesnil-Théribus (c. 90 km northwest of Paris) from the sale of her work. Thereafter she alternated between Paris and the country, with a few months every winter in the south of France. She increasingly concentrated on the mother-and-child theme and on studies of women and young girls, often turning to the Old Masters for inspiration (see fig.). For this work she was recognized on both continents, and, in addition to receiving a number of awards, including the Légion d’honneur in 1904, she was called “the most eminent of all living American women painters” (Current Lit., 1909, 167). She spent much of her time during these years helping her American friends build collections of avant-garde French art and works by Old Masters. Those she advised included Henry and Louisine Havemeyer, Sarah Choate Sears, Bertha Honoré Palmer, and James Stillman. By the 1910s she was gratified to see her own work acquired by major collectors on both sides of the Atlantic as well as museums such as the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. She appeared in American fiction from Louisa May Alcott to Sinclair Lewis and in 1913 she was named as one of the five most important American women along with such notables as Edith Wharton and Ida Tarbell.

Mary Cassatt: The Caress, oil on canvas, 834×694 mm, 1902 (Washington, DC, Smithsonian American Art Museum); photo credit: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC/Art Resource, NY
Cassatt painted until 1915 and exhibited her latest work that year in the Suffrage Loan Exhibition of Old Masters and Works by Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt at the Knoedler Gallery, New York; but soon afterwards cataracts in both eyes forced her into retirement. She continued to be actively interested in art, however, and until her death she vigorously expressed her own views and opinions to the many young artists who visited her seeking advice.
2. Working methods, technique, and subject matter.
Cassatt’s own experimentation and her openness to new ideas caused her style to change many times during her long career. In her early years (1860–1878) she practiced a painterly genre style in dark, rich colors as in A Musical Party (1874; Paris, Mus. Carnavalet); during her Impressionist period (1879–1886) she used a pastel palette and quick brushstrokes in such works as Cup of Tea (c. 1880; New York, Met.); in her mature period (1887–1900) she developed a style that was more finished and dependent on abstract linear design, for instance in The Bath (1893; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.) and Mother and Child (The Oval Mirror) (c. 1899; New York, Met.); and in her late period (1900–1926) she often used color combinations with a somber cast, as in The Caress (1903; Washington, DC, Smithsonian Amer. A. Mus.).

Mary Cassatt: A Musical Party, oil on canvas, 1874 (Paris, Musée Carnavalet); Photo credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY
As a student and young artist, Cassatt avoided the academic emphasis on drawing and concentrated instead on painting techniques. But as her career progressed, particularly after 1879 when she took up pastels and printmaking, she developed a refined and original drawing style that blended European and oriental effects (see fig.). Her first efforts in printmaking were in a collaboration with Degas, Camille Pissarro, and others to produce a journal combining art criticism and original prints. Although the journal, Le Jour et la nuit, never appeared, Cassatt went on to finish several complex prints in etching, aquatint, and drypoint, such as The Visitor (softground, aquatint, and drypoint, c. 1880; Breeskin, 1948, no. 34). In the late 1880s she turned to drypoint for a spare and elegant effect, as in Baby’s Back (c. 1889; b. 128). Her greatest achievement in printmaking, however, was the group of eighteen color prints she produced during the 1890s. The first ten were completed and exhibited as a set in 1891 and are highly prized for their skillful use of aquatint, etching, and drypoint and for Cassatt’s hand-inking and wiping of the plates for each print. Prints from this set, such as The Letter (drypoint and aquatint, 1890–1891; b. 146), show her successful synthesis of the abstract design of Japanese color prints and the atmospheric qualities of Western art.

Mary Cassatt: Margot Lux with a Large Hat, pastel on paper, 640×484 mm, (Paris, Musée du Petit Palais); photo credit: Giraudon/Art Resource, NY
Cassatt’s pastels are equally important to her development as an artist (see fig.). Although she used pastel as a sketching tool from the first, it was not until she joined the Impressionist circle that she began to produce major finished works in this medium. Pastel became increasingly popular in both Europe and the USA in the 1870s and 1880s, and Cassatt was one of the first to exploit the properties of pastel in conveying the vibrancy of “modern” life. As in oil, she tailored her application of the pastel pigment to fit her changing style: exuberant strokes and rich colors during her Impressionist phase gave way to a calmer, more monumental style (exemplified by Banjo Lesson) as she matured. In the 1890s she returned often to the study of pastel techniques of 18th-century masters, particularly Maurice-Quentin de La Tour.

Mary Cassatt: La tasse de thé, pastel on tan wove paper mounted on canvas and stretched on a strainer, 540×730 mm, 1897 (Chicago, IL, Terra Museum of American Art); photo credit: Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago/Art Resource, NY
In the late 1880s Cassatt began to specialize in the mother-and-child theme (e.g. Mother and Child, 1897; Paris, Mus. Orsay). This developed from her interest in the monumental figure and the depiction of modern life and was also in tune with late 19th-century Symbolism. She soon became identified with the theme and continues to be considered one of its greatest interpreters. The provocative contrast between Cassatt’s own life as an ambitious professional artist and her sympathetic portrayal of the most traditional of female roles has led to much debate about gender restrictions and/or opportunities in her day. But the fact that both her life and her art resist simplistic interpretation may explain why she continues to intrigue audiences and hold such an important place in the history of American art.

Mary Cassatt: Mother and Child, pastel on paper, 550×460 mm, 1897 (Paris, Musée d’Orsay); photo credit: Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY

Mary Cassatt: The Cup of Tea, oil on canvas, 36 3/8 x 25 3/4 in. (92.4 x 65.4 cm), ca. 1880–81 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, From the Collection of James Stillman, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, 1922, Accession ID:22.16.17); photo © The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/20010734
Bibliography
- Huysmans, J. K. L’Art moderne. Paris, 1883, 6, 110, 231–234 [reviews of Salon of 1879, Impressionist exhibitions of 1880 and 1881].
- Exposition Mary Cassatt, preface A. Mellério. Paris, Gal. Durand-Ruel, 1893. Exhibition catalog.
- Walton, W. “Miss Mary Cassatt.” Scribner’s Magazine 18 (1896): 353–361 [review of Cassatt’s exhibition in New York, 1895].
- Segard, A. Mary Cassatt: Une Peintre des enfants et des mères. Paris, 1913 [first complete study of Cassatt’s life and work, based on interviews with her].
- Breeskin, A. D. The Graphic Work of Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York, 1948, rev. Washington, DC, 2/1979 [B.].
- Breeskin, A. D. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels, Watercolours, and Drawings. Washington, DC, 1970.
- Shapiro, B. S. Mary Cassatt at Home. Boston, MA, Mus. F.A., 1978. Exhibition catalog.
- Mathews, N. M., ed. Cassatt and her Circle: Selected Letters. New York, 1984.
- Lindsay, S. G. Mary Cassatt and Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA, Mus. A., 1985. Exhibition catalog.
- Mathews, N. M. Mary Cassatt. New York, 1987.
- Mowll Mathews, N. and Stern Shapiro, B. Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints. Washington, DC, N.G.A.; Williamstown, Williams Coll. Mus. A.; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.; 1989. Exhibition catalog.
- Carr, C. K. “Mary Cassatt and Mary Fairchild MacMonnies: The Search for their 1893 Murals.” American Art 8 (Winter 1994): 52–69.
- Mathews, N. M. Mary Cassatt: A Life. New York, 1994 and New Haven, 1998.
- Boone, M. E. “Bullfights and Balconies: Flirtation and Majismo in Mary Cassatt’s Spanish Paintings of 1872–73.” American Art 9 (Spring 1995): 54–71.
- Barter, J. A. Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman. Chicago, IL, A. Inst.; Boston, MA, Mus. F.A.; Washington, DC, N.G.A.; 1998–1999. Exhibition catalog.
- Clement, R. T., Houze, A., and Erbolato-Ramsey, C. The Women Impressionists: A Sourcebook. Westport, CT, and London, 2000.
- Webster, S. Eve’s Daughter/Modern Woman: A Mural by Mary Cassatt. Urbana and Chicago, 2004.
- Mathews, N. M., ed. Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family. Shelburne, VT, Mus., 2008. Exhibition catalog.
- Pfeiffer, I. and Hollein, Max, eds. Women Impressionists. Ostfildern, 2008.
- Corn, W. Women Building History: Public Art at the 1893 Columbian Exposition. Berkeley, 2011.
- Jones, K. A. and others. Degas/Cassatt. Washington, DC, N.G.A., 2014. Exhibition catalog.
- Numata, H. and others. Mary Cassatt Retrospective. Yokohama Mus. A., 2016. Exhibition catalog.
- Mathews, N. M. and Curie, P. Mary Cassatt, une impressionniste américaine à Paris. Paris, Mus. Jacquemart-André, 2018. Exhibition catalog.
External resources
- Cassatt, Mary: Alexander J. Cassatt, 1880, Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Loge, 1882, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Girl Arranging Her Hair, 1886, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Boating Party, 1893-4, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: After the Bath, 1901, Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH)
- Cassatt, Mary: In the Garden, 1904, Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI)
- Cassatt, Mary: Portrait of the Artist's Mother, c. 1889, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Bath, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Lamp, c. 1891, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: In the Omnibus, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Letter, c. 1891, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Fitting, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Woman Bathing, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Mother's Kiss, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Coiffure, c. 1891, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Gathering Fruit, c. 1893, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Banjo Lesson, c. 1893, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Peasant Mother and Child, c. 1894, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Mother About to Wash Her Sleepy Child, 1880, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Black Hat, c. 1890, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Child in a Straw Hat, c. 1886, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Miss Mary Ellison, c. 1880, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Mother and Child, c. 1905, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Portrait of an Elderly Lady, c. 1887, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Woman with a Red Zinnia, 1897, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: La Robe de Dentelle (Portrait of a Little Girl), 1879, Muse des Beaux-Arts (Bordeaux)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Child's Bath, 1891-2, Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
- Cassatt, Mary: Lydia Reading the Morning Paper, 1878-9, Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, NE)
- Cassatt, Mary: Agatha and her Child, 1891, Butler Institute of American Art (Youngstown, OH)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Caress, 1902, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Sarah in a Green Bonnet, c. 1901, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Spanish Dancer Wearing a Lace Mantilla, 1873, National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Women Admiring a Child, 1897, Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, MI)
- Cassatt, Mary: Breakfast in Bed, 1897, Virginia Steele Scott Gallery of American Art (San Marino, CA)
- Cassatt, Mary: Reine Lefebvre Holding a Nude Baby, 1902, Worcester Art Museum (Worcester, MA)
- Cassatt, Mary: Portrait of a Woman, 1872, Dayton Art Institute (Dayton, OH)
- Cassatt, Mary: Sara Wearing her Bonnet and Coat, c. 1904, Sweet Briar College Art Galleries (Sweet Briar, VA)
- Cassatt, Mary: Mother and Child, c. 1889, Cincinnati Art Museum (Cincinnati, OH)
- Cassatt, Mary: Children Playing on the Beach, 1884, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Coiffure, c. 1891, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Fitting, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: In the Omnibus (verso), c. 1891, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: In the Omnibus (recto), c. 1891, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Margot Leaning against Reine's Knee, c. 1902, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Sara Wearing a Bonnet and Coat, c. 1904-6, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Smiling Margot Wearing a Ruffled Bonnet, c. 1902, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Afternoon Tea Party (1943.3.2743), 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Afternoon Tea Party (1963.10.256), 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Afternoon Tea Party (1946.21.78), 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Afternoon Tea Party (1943.3.2742), 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Interior: On the Sofa, c. 1883, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Maternal Caress, 1890-91, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Visitor, c. 1880, National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Mother and Child, 1893, Stiftung Sammlung E. G. Bhrle (Zurich)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Cup of Tea, c. 1879, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
- Cassatt, Mary: Portrait of the Artist, 1878, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
- Cassatt, Mary: In the Loge, 1879, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA)
- Cassatt, Mary: Ellen Mary in a White Coat, c. 1896, Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Barefooted Child, c. 1896-7, Minneapolis Institute of Arts (Minneapolis, MN)
- Cassatt, Mary: Portrait of an Elderly Lady in a Bonnet: Red Background, c. 1887, Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, AL)
- Cassatt, Mary: Offering the Panal to Offering the Panal to the Bullfighter Offering the Panal to the Bullfighter, 1873, Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA)
- Cassatt, Mary: Woman with Baby, c. 1902, Clark Art Institute (Williamstown, MA)
- Cassatt, Mary: Simone in a Blue Bonnet, c. 1903, Rhode Island School of Design (Providence, RI)
- Cassatt, Mary: Young Girl at a Window, c. 1883, Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)
- Cassatt, Mary: Bacchante, 1872, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA)
- Cassatt, Mary: The Fitting, 1891, Smith College Museum of Art (Northampton, MA)