165 Years Ago in Pittsburgh (nee Allegheny City)
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born in Pennsylvania on May 22, 1844. She grew up in a privileged family of merchants, who were never concerned with easy loans and payday cash. Even without hard money loans or instant cash, travel abroad was an integral part of her education. She had her first drawing lessons in Europe.
She dismissed the patronization of men
Although her family objected to her becoming a professional artist, Cassatt enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts when she was just 15. Impatient with the slow pace of instruction and patronizing male attitudes, Cassatt left without obtaining a degree. Over her father’s objection, she moved to Paris in 1866.
Because women were not allowed to attend the Paris art schools, Cassatt studied privately with masters. She augmented her training with a “copyist permit” allowing her to work alongside the low-paid women who filled the Louvre to paint copies for sale.
She was determined to make it on her own
Traditionally, artists of this period sold paintings by submitting them to the selection jury for the Paris Salon. The jury first accepted one of Cassatt’s paintings in 1868. For the next ten years, Cassatt continued to promote her work through the Salon, but she became increasingly disillusioned.
In 1870 she returned to Pennsylvania. Her father continued to resist her chosen profession and refused to pay for her art supplies. Determined to make an independent living, Cassatt moved to Chicago where several of her early paintings were destroyed in the fire of 1871. Her luck improved when the Archbishop of Pittsburgh commissioned her to copy paintings by Correggio in Italy and advanced her trip expenses.
After completing her commission, Cassatt traveled to Spain where she created a series of famous Spanish-themed paintings. Shortly thereafter she moved to France, where she continued to criticize the Salon, which snubbed female artists unless they had friends or sponsors on the jury.
She welcomed the tutelage of Degas and the Impressionists
In 1877, the Salon rejected Cassatt’s entries. She was joined in Paris by her father and mother, but her father continued to insist that her art expenses be covered by her sales, which were meager. At this low point she was invited by Edgar Degas to join the Impressionists, a notorious group of artists who had been making independent exhibitions.
Cassatt was enthusiastic about the Impressionist movement, and in the coming years Degas would have a considerable influence on her. But because female artists drew unfavorable attention, Cassatt was able to meet with the other artists only privately and at exhibitions.
She put her money where her heart was
The Impressionist exhibit of 1879 was a success and Cassatt used her profits to purchase a painting by Degas and one by Monet. She was active in the Impressionist circle until 1886, after which she no longer identified herself with any particular art movement. She began experimenting with a variety of techniques and displayed her work in New York as well as Paris.
She followed her heart to success
Drawn to the simplicity and clarity of Japanese design, Cassatt established her popular reputation in the 1890s with a series of relatively unsentimental mother-and-child paintings. This was her busiest and most creative time.
In the 1900s her work became marked by an increasing sentimentality. She continued to be popular, but she was no longer in the forefront of innovation. On a trip to Egypt in 1910, Cassatt was overcome by the beauty of the art and a creative crisis ensued. Her health began to fail, and by 1914 she was nearly blind. She could no longer paint, but she exhibited her paintings to support women’s suffrage.
Cassatt died near Paris on June 14, 1926. To date, her paintings have sold for as much as $2.87 million.
