Mary Cassatt: 12 works

'In the late 1870s, when she first exhibited with the Impressionists, Cassatt painted several images of the theater, a popular entertainment in Paris. Unlike her friend Edgar Degas, Cassatt focused on the spectators rather than the performers, exposing the dramas in the audience.'

'This work, showing a woman (often said to be her sister Lydia) seated in front of a mirror with the balconies of the Paris Opéra House reflected behind her, demonstrates the influence of Cassatt's friend Edgar Degas, particularly in the attention paid to the effects of artificial lighting on flesh tones.'

'The bold strokes of Cassatt's drawing, emphasizing color, mood, and motion, celebrate her rapid touch and the modernity of her style.'

'A prolific and innovative printmaker, Mary Cassatt created this work as one of a series of 10 color prints intended for an 1891 exhibition at the influential Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris. Cassatt had challenged herself to imitate the methods of Japanese prints that she had seen on view in Paris the year before.'

'"Mother's Kiss" is one of many mother and child images for which Cassatt earned international renown. She initially experimented with the mother and child theme in the 1880s, inspired by the relationship between her sister-in-law and nephew.'

'Free brushstrokes, broad areas of flat color, and tight cropping all reflect her involvement with the Impressionists. Cassatt was one of the few women and the only American who worked and exhibited with the French artists.'

'"The Child's Bath," with its striking and unorthodox composition, is one of Cassatt's masterworks. In it she employed unconventional devices such as cropped forms, bold patterns and outlines, and a flattened perspective, all of which derived from her study of Japanese woodblock prints.'

'The intimate relationship of mother and child is the theme most closely identified with Cassatt. She portrayed this particular pair, about whom we know very little, in six pastels, adopting her French colleagues' practice of working in a series.'

'Mary Cassatt, the most daring of the American Impressionists, came from a well-to-do Pittsburgh family and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. An independent spirit, Cassatt moved permanently to France and eventually cast aside her training, which she found stifling to creativity.'

'Working first in black and white, Cassatt began incorporating color into her prints after viewing the 1890 exhibition of Japanese ukiyo-e prints at the école des Beaux-Arts. No other artist succeeded in adapting the spirit of the Japanese color woodcut to the Western medium of etching as effectively as Cassatt.'

'Mary Cassatt, the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania banker, traveled extensively through Italy, Belgium and Spain and trained in Paris with several notable teachers including Gérôme and Couture. She met Degas in 1877, and though their friendship would be fitful and end in total estrangement, the encounter proved meaningful for both artists.'

'Mary Cassatt=92s fame rests on her images of young mothers and children, subjects the American expatriate and Francophile depicted in many media, including drypoint.'