Mary Cassatt

1844–1926 · Impressionism

Biography

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), an American painter who lived in Paris, was the only American to exhibit with the Impressionists. She is celebrated for her intimate scenes of women's lives and of mothers and children.

From the artist’s life

Mary Cassatt was an exceptional printmaker who created colour prints. In 1890 she was deeply impressed by a major exhibition of Japanese prints, which prompted her to hold her first solo exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in 1893.

From the page of Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), born near Pittsburgh, lived in Paris and was the only American invited to exhibit with the Impressionists. She also helped American collectors acquire Impressionist works.

From the page of Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge

Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City. The city is now part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She came from a well-to-do family whose forebears worked in brokerage and banking. Cassatt travelled a great deal as a child; before she was even in her teens she had been taken around much of Europe. It is not surprising, then, that she spent almost her entire adult life on the old continent. As a painter and printmaker she had a brilliant career, and she used her special position as a celebrated woman artist to promote women’s rights. In her later years she struggled with rheumatic problems and other ailments of old age and became partially blind, yet she continued working well past the age of seventy.

From the page of Breakfast in Bed