Mary Cassatt (American, 1845-1926), Study for “The Sun
Bath,” n.d., Oil on canvas, 15 x 23 inches, Georgia Museum of Art, University
of Georgia; Extended loan from the Joan M. MacGillivray 1957 Trust GMOA
2002.115E
Mary Cassatt was born (May 22) in 1844. She was an American
painter and printmaker best known for her Impressionist work. At the age of 15
she began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
despite her father’s objection to her becoming a professional artist. She then
moved to Paris in 1866, where she began her study with private art lessons in
the Louvre. Here she befriended Edgar Degas. Regarded as the one of the founders
of Impressionism, he had significant influence on Cassatt’s etching work. She
also became proficient in the use of pastels, and many of her most important
works are in this medium. Her
increasingly poor eyesight virtually put an end to her serious painting, and
she died in 1926.
Cassatt's popular reputation is based on an extensive series
of rigorously drawn and tenderly observed images of the private lives of women
with an emphasis on the intimate bonds between mother and child.
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