Born in Philadelphia into a well-to-do family, Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) spent most
of her adult life in Europe and, along with Berthe Morisot, went on to become one of
the most celebrated female Impressionists. In the 1860s, she initially trained as an
academic painter with masters Jeon-Léon Gérôme and Thomas Couture, submitting
works to the Paris Salon and studying from old master paintings in the Louvre, but
over time grew dissatisfied with her work. In 1876, Edgar Degas invited her to show
in the next Impressionists Exhibition, insisting that, “Most women paint like they are
trimming hats, (but) not you.”
She enthusiastically accepted the offer to exhibit and went on to show works in four
of the eight subsequent Impressionist Exhibitions. Cassatt and Degas had a close
relationship and it was under Degas’ guidance that she developed her techniques in
pastels and etching/aquatint. Degas also depicted Cassatt in a series of etchings
recording their visits to the Louvre (see lot 29). After 1886, Cassatt no longer
considered herself part of any artistic group, and while she remained friends with the
founding Impressionists, she distanced herself stylistically. Over the course of her
career she also served as an art adviser to many American collectors, including Louise
and Harry Havemeyer, helping them to build an impressive collection of Impressionist
art that is now among the centerpieces of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Cassatt was very opinionated and did not appreciate many of the works by the Post-
Impressionists, Fauves and Cubists. It has been suggested that she was unaware there
were any works representing her in the Armory Show; she was at the time nearing 70
years old and was going blind and growing infirm. Had she known the truth, she would
not likely have been pleased. Two works, an oil and a watercolor, were displayed in
Gallery O of the Armory Show along with her contemporaries, Degas and Monet, as
well as the Post Impressionists Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec—neither of whose work
she appreciated. Cassatt’s distaste of Paul Cézanne’s mid- to late-career paintings
(she approved of his earlier work), exhibited in the gallery adjacent to her own work
in the Armory Show, and echoed by the Armory Show press who so vehemently
criticized his early modernist style, grew to such a degree following the exhibition
that she insisted on selling off most of her Cézanne paintings.
Although Cassatt was alive when the Armory Show took place, she was no longer
making artwork. After 1900, her vision was severely compromised, leading her to
give up printmaking and painting by the early 1900s. Though she never married, her
legacy rests in her dedication to her art and in her position as an influential art
adviser who prompted wealthy American collectors to invest in Impressionism.
Cassatt made 220 etchings, drypoints and aquatints between the mid-1870s and early
1900s, among the most famous of which are a set of ten color aquatints (lot 31) each
made in an edition of approximately 25 in the early 1890s. She was deeply influenced
by traditional Japanese
Ukiyo-e
color woodcuts when she began to work on this set
of color prints. In 1890, she and Degas had visited a exhibition of Japanese art at the
École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, thereafter she began collecting
Ukiyo-e
woodcuts
(notably by Utamaro and his circle) and she determined to produce a series of prints
based on the Japanese woodcuts. As she wrote to the American collector Samuel P.
Avery, “The set was done with the intention of attempting an imitation of the
Japanese methods.” While she focused instead on producing these as color aquatints
with etching (with technical assistance from Degas), rather than woodcuts in the
Japanese style, these remain a highpoint in Impressionist printmaking still today.
