Mary Cassatt: 260 Plates

By Maria Peitcheva

Mary Cassatt was an American impressionist painter who depicted the lives of women, chiefly the intimate bond between mother and child. Her works are painted with quick brushstrokes in a pastel palette. Invited in 1877 by her friend and mentor Edgar Degas, Cassatt was one of three women—and the only American—to join a group of artists later known as the Impressionists, which included Claude Monet and Camille Pissaro. Influenced by the Japanese prints she collected, Cassatt developed a refined drawing style that blended European and Asian effects, increasingly creating figural compositions, like The Letter (1890), with flattened forms and harmonious color combinations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria Peitcheva
• Release date: Mar 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9788892561984

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Mary Cassatt:

260 Plates

By Maria Peitcheva

First Edition

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Mary Cassatt: 260 Plates

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Copyright © 2016 by Maria Peitcheva

Foreword

Mary Cassatt was an American impressionist painter who depicted the lives of women, chiefly the intimate bond between mother and child. She traveled extensively as a child, and was probably exposed to the works of the great masters at the World’s fair in Paris in 1855. Degas and Pissarro would later become her mentors and fellow painters. She began studying art seriously at the age of 15, at a time when only around twenty percent of all arts students were female. Unlike many of the other female students, she was determined to make art her career, rather than just a social skill. She was disappointed at her art education in the United States, and moved to Paris to study art under private tutors in Paris. Her mother and family friends traveled with her to France, acting as chaperones.

She continued her art education in France, and her first work was accepted into the Paris Salon in 1868. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, however, she returned to the United States to live with her family. Her father, who did not approve of her chosen vocation as an artist, paid for her living expenses, but refused to pay for her art supplies. During her stay in the United States, Cassatt was miserable. She exhibited some paintings but found no buyers, and upset at the lack of art to study; she quit painting and almost gave up the craft. After a trip to Chicago, her work was noticed by the Archbishop of Pittsburgh, who commissioned from her a copy of two of Correggio’s