Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in 1844, and overcame considerable social and institutional resistance to forge one of the most distinguished careers in the history of American art. She studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before moving to Europe, where she eventually settled in Paris. In 1877, Edgar Degas invited her to exhibit with the Impressionists — making her the only American and one of very few women to do so — a collaboration that proved mutually transformative and one of the great artistic friendships of the era.\n\nCassatt's subject matter — women and children in intimate domestic and social settings, rendered with psychological attentiveness and formal sophistication — may appear conventional at first glance, but her handling of color, light, and composition was boldly modern. Her discovery of Japanese woodblock prints at the 1890 Paris exhibition profoundly influenced her own printmaking practice, producing a celebrated series of color aquatints of extraordinary delicacy. Late in life, failing eyesight curtailed her output, but she remained a passionate advocate for Impressionism, persuading major American collectors to acquire works that would eventually anchor some of the finest museum collections in the United States.