Choice of Media
Choice of Subject
Influence on American Collections

Mary Cassatt's place in the history of American art is unique, not only because she was one of the few woman artists of any nationality to succeed professionally in her time, but also because she was the only American artist to exhibit with the French Impressionists. After mastering the requirements of academic painting, Cassatt broke away from tradition and joined Edgar Degas, a close friend and mentor, in the exhibition of Impressionist artists in 1879. Cassatt embraced the technique of the Impressionists while developing a highly accomplished individual style. Her oblique views, simplified forms, and flat compositions show the impact of Degas's work, as well as her study of Japanese prints. Cassatt created a personal language out of the grammar of Impressionism. Most often, she portrayed women like herself out and about in Paris, or at home, taking tea, reading, sewing, writing letters, and engaging in other familiar activities. Cassatt began to explore her signature theme--the mother and child--in 1880 and made a specialty of it after 1893. In all her paintings, pastels, and prints, she revealed herself to be a sensitive and candid witness to the lives of women and children at the end of the nineteenth century.

Choice of Media
Cassatt was a versatile artist, accomplished in oil painting as well as in making pastels and prints. Initially, Cassatt worked primarily in oil, but by the early 1890s, printmaking and work in pastels had become her central interests, thanks to Degas, who encouraged her experiments in these media. It is in her works on paper that the influence of Japanese prints upon Cassatt is particularly apparent.
Top

Choice of Subject
Today Mary Cassatt is probably best known for her portrayals of the intimate activities of urban women, including reading, knitting, and taking tea, and the subject of the mother and child, which dominated her work after about 1893. Like Degas, she appears to have repeated particular themes in order to master various techniques. Practical reasons and considerations of social decorum also may have dictated her choice of subjects, who were most often members of her own social circle engaged in familiar activities.
Top

Influence on American Collections
Although Cassatt chose to live abroad for most of her adult life, she always considered herself an American. She was a frequent participant in art exhibitions in the United States, and her advice to Americans patrons of art, such as Louisine and H. O. Havemeyer, Alexander Cassatt, John G. Johnson, and Berthe Honoré Palmer helped to create some of the boldest and most distinguished art collections in the world.
Top