63 Facts About Mary Cassatt

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker.

Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France, where she befriended Edgar Degas and exhibited with the Impressionists.

Mary Cassatt was described by Gustave Geffroy as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.

Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is part of Pittsburgh.

Mary Cassatt was born into an upper-middle-class family: Her father, Robert Simpson Cassat, was a successful stockbroker and land speculator.

Katherine Mary Cassatt, educated and well-read, had a profound influence on her daughter.

One brother, Alexander Johnston Mary Cassatt, later became president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Mary Cassatt grew up in an environment that viewed travel as integral to education; she spent five years in Europe and visited many of the capitals, including London, Paris, and Berlin.

Mary Cassatt continued her studies from 1861 through 1865, the duration of the American Civil War.

Mary Cassatt later said: "There was no teaching" at the Academy.

Mary Cassatt decided to end her studies: At that time, no degree was granted.

Since women could not yet attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Mary Cassatt applied to study privately with masters from the school and was accepted to study with Jean-Leon Gerome, a highly regarded teacher known for his hyper-realistic technique and his depiction of exotic subjects.

The museum served as a social place for Frenchmen and American female students, who, like Mary Cassatt, were not allowed to attend cafes where the avant-garde socialized.

In 1868, Mary Cassatt studied with artist Thomas Couture, whose subjects were mostly romantic and urban.

Mary Cassatt's father continued to resist her chosen vocation, and paid for her basic needs, but not her art supplies.

Mary Cassatt placed two of her paintings in a New York gallery and found many admirers but no purchasers.

Mary Cassatt even considered giving up art, as she was determined to make an independent living.

Mary Cassatt traveled to Chicago to try her luck, but lost some of her early paintings in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

Mary Cassatt's painting Two Women Throwing Flowers During Carnival was well received in the Salon of 1872, and was purchased.

Mary Cassatt attracted much favorable notice in Parma and was supported and encouraged by the art community there: "All Parma is talking of Miss Cassatt and her picture, and everyone is anxious to know her".

Mary Cassatt was joined by her sister Lydia who shared an apartment with her.

Mary Cassatt continued to express criticism of the politics of the Salon and the conventional taste that prevailed there.

Mary Cassatt was blunt in her comments, as reported by Sartain, who wrote: "she is entirely too slashing, snubs all modern art, disdains the Salon pictures of Cabanel, Bonnat, all the names we are used to revere".

Mary Cassatt saw that works by female artists were often dismissed with contempt unless the artist had a friend or protector on the jury, and she would not flirt with jurors to curry favor.

Mary Cassatt's cynicism grew when one of the two pictures she submitted in 1875 was refused by the jury, only to be accepted the following year after she darkened the background.

Mary Cassatt had quarrels with Sartain, who thought Cassatt too outspoken and self-centered, and eventually they parted.

Out of her distress and self-criticism, Mary Cassatt decided that she needed to move away from genre paintings and onto more fashionable subjects, in order to attract portrait commissions from American socialites abroad, but that attempt bore little fruit at first.

Mary Cassatt admired Degas, whose pastels had made a powerful impression on her when she encountered them in an art dealer's window in 1875.

Mary Cassatt now hoped for commercial success selling paintings to the sophisticated Parisians who preferred the avant-garde.

Mary Cassatt's style had gained a new spontaneity during the intervening two years.

Mary Cassatt valued their companionship, as neither she nor Lydia had married.

Mary Cassatt had decided early in life that marriage would be incompatible with her career.

Mary Cassatt's father insisted that her studio and supplies be covered by her sales, which were still meager.

Afraid of having to paint "potboilers" to make ends meet, Mary Cassatt applied herself to produce some quality paintings for the next Impressionist exhibition.

Mary Cassatt became extremely proficient in the use of pastels, eventually creating many of her most important works in this medium.

Mary Cassatt treasured his friendship but learned not to expect too much from his fickle and temperamental nature after a project they were collaborating on at the time, a proposed journal devoted to prints, was abruptly dropped by him.

Mary Cassatt displayed eleven works, including Lydia in a Loge, Wearing a Pearl Necklace,.

Mary Cassatt used her share of the profits to purchase a work by Degas and one by Monet.

Mary Cassatt participated in the Impressionist Exhibitions that followed in 1880 and 1881, and she remained an active member of the Impressionist circle until 1886.

In 1886, Mary Cassatt provided two paintings for the first Impressionist exhibition in the US, organized by art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.

Mary Cassatt made several portraits of family members during that period, of which Portrait of Alexander Mary Cassatt and His Son Robert Kelso is one of her best regarded.

Mary Cassatt began to exhibit her works in New York galleries as well.

Mary Cassatt depicted the "New Woman" of the 19th century from the woman's perspective.

Mary Cassatt "initiated the profound beginnings in recreating the image of the 'new' women", drawn from the influence of her intelligent and active mother, Katherine Cassatt, who believed in educating women to be knowledgeable and socially active.

Mary Cassatt objected to being stereotyped as a "woman artist", she supported women's suffrage, and in 1915 showed eighteen works in an exhibition supporting the movement organised by Louisine Havemeyer, a committed and active feminist.

The exhibition brought her into conflict with her sister-in-law Eugenie Carter Mary Cassatt, who was anti-suffrage and who boycotted the show along with Philadelphia society in general.

Mary Cassatt responded by selling off her work that was otherwise destined for her heirs.

In particular The Boating Party, thought to have been inspired by the birth of Eugenie's daughter Ellen Mary Cassatt, was bought by the National Gallery, Washington DC.

Mary Cassatt frequently posed for Degas, notably for his millinery series trying on hats.

Around 1884, Degas made a portrait in oils of Cassatt, Mary Cassatt Seated, Holding Cards.

Degas' withdrawal piqued Mary Cassatt who had worked hard at preparing a print, In the Opera Box, in a large edition of fifty impressions, no doubt destined for the journal.

Mary Cassatt later expressed satisfaction at the irony of Lousine Havermeyer's 1915 joint exhibition of hers and Degas' work being held in aid of women's suffrage, equally capable of affectionately repeating Degas' antifemale comments as being estranged by them.

Mary Cassatt's reputation is based on an extensive series of rigorously drawn and tenderly observed paintings and prints on the theme of the mother and child.

Mary Cassatt had matured considerably and became more diplomatic and less blunt in her opinions.

Mary Cassatt became a role model for young American artists who sought her advice.

Mary Cassatt was attracted to the simplicity and clarity of Japanese design, and the skillful use of blocks of color.

Mary Cassatt completed the project over the next two years while living in France with her mother.

Palmer considered Mary Cassatt to be an American treasure and could think of no one better to paint a mural at an exposition that was to do so much to focus the world's attention on the status of women.

Mary Cassatt made several studies and paintings on themes similar to those in the mural, so it is possible to see her development of those ideas and images.

Mary Cassatt was shaken, as they had been close, but she continued to be very productive in the years leading up to 1910.

Mary Cassatt was hostile to such new developments in art as post-Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism.

Mary Cassatt died on June 14,1926 at Chateau de Beaufresne, near Paris, and was buried in the family vault at Le Mesnil-Theribus, France.

House of rue de Marignan in Paris, where Mary Cassatt lived from 1887 until her death.