Mary Cassatt posters
Birth Year : 1845
Death Year : 1927
Country : US
Mary Cassatt, one of the two women and the only American
to show with the Impressionists, was born in Pittsburgh.
She was the daughter of a millionaire and spent her
childhood in Europe with her family. When the Cassatt's
returned to live in Philadelphia, Mary studied at the
Pennsylvania Academy of Art until she was twenty-three.
Then, against her father's wishes, she left for Europe
to study further and visit Italy, Spain, and Belgium
before going to Paris where, as she said, the sight of a
pastel by
Degas changed her life. It was through Degas, who
was more her sponsor than her teacher, that she
delighted to be relieved of the arbitrary standards
established for acceptance at the official Salons.
Cassatt scrupulously separated her social life from her
artistic one and was in some ways aloof from the relaxed
artistic atmosphere around her.
Her subject matter was thus restricted to the ladylike
pastimes and scenes with which she was generally
surrounded, but her technique and power were by no means
limited. She was a fine artist in her favorite mediums:
oil, pastel, etching, and lithography. Her work has the
intellectualized emotion of
Degas; the soft contours of
Renoir, (particularly in her many renderings of
children and mothers), and the flat surface of
Manet. In addition, she was strongly influenced by
Japanese prints and she was extremely adept at handling
large color masses while she achieved the Oriental
quality of cleanliness with a sure and incisive
draughtsmanship. By far the wealthiest and the most
financially influential of the Impressionists, Cassett
did a great deal, unobtrusively, to help her associates.
Not only did she purchase many of their works for
herself, but she also encouraged her friends, the
Havemeyers and the Stillmans, to collect Impressionist
art and, when conditions were desperate, she even loaned
money to the Durand-Ruel Gallery to promote an
exhibition. Cassatt, who received very little
recognition in her own country until long after her
death, lived and worked in France throughout her life
and was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1904.
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