Background
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1845 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, United States. She was descended from a Frenchman named Cossart, who in 1662 emigrated from France into Holland, and whose grandson emigrated to America. She was the daughter of Robert S. Cassatt, a banker, and Katharine Kelso (Johnston) Cassatt. Her eldest brother, Alexander Johnston Cassatt, became president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. When she was a little girl, her parents took her to Paris where they lived for five years, returning finally to Philadelphia. In 1868 she went again to Paris with her mother, who spoke and wrote French fluently. It was then that Mary Cassatt decided definitely to become an artist.
Education
She started her schooling at the age of six.
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. While abroad she learned German and French and had her first lessons in drawing and music. It is likely that her first exposure to French artists Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Camille Corot, and Gustave Courbet was at the Paris World’s Fair of 1855. Also in the exhibition were Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro, both of whom were later her colleagues and mentors.
Though her family objected to her becoming a professional artist, Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia at the early age of 15. Part of her parents' concern may have been Cassatt's exposure to feminist ideas and the bohemian behavior of some of the male students. As such, Cassatt and her network of friends were lifelong advocates of equal rights for the sexes. Although about 20 percent of the students were female, most viewed art as a socially valuable skill; few of them were determined, as Cassatt was, to make art their career. She continued her studies from 1861 through 1865, the duration of the American Civil War. Among her fellow students was Thomas Eakins, later the controversial director of the Academy.
Career
In 1874 she returned to Paris permanently. She became a devoted disciple of Degas, with whom she enjoyed long years of friendship and mutual criticism. Degas suggested that she exhibit with his friends of the Impressionist school, and she accepted with joy. She hated conventional art and with this group, Manet, Courbet, Degas, and others, she departed from the academic tradition, working out her personal interpretation, untrammeled by precedent. She exhibited with Impressionists from 1879 to 1886. Degas's admiration for her was unbounded. Before one of her pictures he said, "I will not admit a woman can draw like that. " Mellerio wrote that she "possesses an original inspiration, representative of her epoch and her race, a direct and significant expression of the American character. " In 1893 she gave her first independent exhibition, in the Gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris. She was chosen among women artists to decorate the Woman's Building in the Chicago Exposition. Puvis de Chavannes and Whistler were among her close friends. She painted a number of portraits with admirable results, notably those of her mother and her devoted friend Mrs. Henry O. Havemeyer. For almost every picture and print, she chose the world-old theme of motherhood, depicting mothers and babies in intimate scenes in sunny gardens and quiet interiors, not sentimentally, but in an original and simple manner. Her pastels are not so well known, but they are in soft, light tones, and some of her best work was done in this difficult medium. Her etchings, dry-points, and color prints are of great delicacy, yet firm in line and perception. By competent critics she is esteemed the most distinguished etcher, after Whistler, that America has produced. She was, however, regarded more as a member of the French Impressionist school than of any American group.
She possessed wealth and an enviable position in the social as well as the art world. During the latter years of her life, she was an invalid, becoming almost blind. The only portrait of her known to exist is a small sketch made many years ago by Degas, now in a private French collection. The Memorial Exhibition held in the Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, April 1927, was a valuable showing of her work in all media. It included forty oils and pastels, over a hundred prints and a series of fifteen water-colors and drawings.
Views
Although Cassatt did not explicitly make political statements about women's rights in her work, her artistic portrayal of women was consistently done with dignity and the suggestion of a deeper, meaningful inner life. 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 Cassatt, who was anti-suffrage and who boycotted the show along with Philadelphia society in general. 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, was bought by the National Gallery, Washington DC.
Personality
She was above the average height, dark and slender. Her voice was low, soft, and pleasantly modulated, her manner quiet, except when she was roused in some heated art discussion.
