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home > exhibitions > mary cassatt: modern woman
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| Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman
Sunday, February 14, 1999 - Sunday, May 9, 1999
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How did Mary Cassatt (1844-1926), a young woman from a respectable family in Pennsylvania, become the only American to exhibit with the revolutionary French painters known as the Impressionists? Visitors to the MFA this spring can discover-or rediscover-this distinguished artist in the first complete retrospective of her work in over thirty years. Almost one hundred of Cassatt's most beautiful compositions in all media are included in the exhibition, the first time so many have ever been shown in Boston.
Cassatt's life was marked by her bold resolve to transcend conventional expectations for women and to succeed as an innovative professional artist. After her education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in Philadelphia, she continued her studies in Europe and settled permanently in Paris in 1874. Her early paintings, which she displayed at the important annual Salon exhibitions, incorporate fashionable Spanish and Italian themes. But Cassatt embraced more radical art in the mid-1870s, when she discovered the works of the Impressionists, turned toward subjects drawn from modern life, and (as she later recalled) "began to live."
Cassatt was soon invited by Edgar Degas to join the Impressionist circle. Over the next twenty-five years, she created brilliant pastels, paintings, and prints that depict contemporary women attending the opera, drinking tea, reading, and caring for children. In 1893, Cassatt was asked to paint a monumental decoration for the world's fair in Chicago. This mural, called Modern Woman, established her reputation in the United States. Its title reminds us that, in her own day Cassatt was both a modern artist and a modern woman. This exhibition offers new insights about her world and her art. |
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