MARY CASSATT (5/22/1844 to 6/14/1936)
Artist, American expatriate, Feminist
“I think that if you shake the tree, you ought to be around when the fruit falls to pick it up.” M. Cassatt
I recently visited a local art museum with an artist friend and because she focused on the artist and not just the painting, I had a different experience than I’ve had at other art museums. One of the artists my friend adored was Mary Cassaat. I’ve always loved impressionism—favoring Claude Monet over all the others – but on this visit my eyes were opened to the way Mary and the other women impressionists were treated; misogyny, sexism, inequality and social standing significantly impacted their success tenfold. While it was an arduous task for male artists to attain recognition, acceptance and financial security, the obstacles women endured were insurmountable. But Mary made it to the summit and remained there for decades. That’s when I knew it was Mary’s turn to sit at the top of my pedestal.
Mary was born in the mid-1800’s and during those times, women were expected to be subservient to the men in their lives: even women of high social standing and education. When Mary came of age in the 1879’s, it was rare for women to have their own aspirations. But Mary was an exception – moving to Paris when she was in her 20’s and then quickly immersing herself in the impression style of painting. Impressions was an avant-garde style of painting that used unblended colors, visible brush strokes, and applied a unique method of capturing color and time. It’s said to have been coined by an art critic in 1824 when he mocked Claude Monet’s painting (How dare he?) titled “Impression: Sunrise,” saying it looked like an unfinished sketch. But instead of rebuking Monet, the art community embraced this softer style and a “movement” was born. And Mary, like all women who knew a good thing when they saw it, placed herself right in the thick of things.
Recognizing Edgar Dega as a kindred spirit, Mary embarked on a personal and professional relationship with him that lasted decades. Mary, blessed with good luck, an abundance of talent, family money, a keen sense of intuition, and friends like Berthe Morisot, Renoir, Manet, Pissarro and Cezanne, she soon became known as the “first great American female artist.” Unlike many women, Mary was able to not only support herself, she also bankrolled some of the early suffragette movements. Many of her famous painting were of women and children in casual settings; Mother & Child; In the Loge; Little Girl with Blue Velvet, The Tea, and Lydia Seated on a Porch. Unfortunately, some of her artwork was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.
The 8ft. bronze statue of Mary Cassatt, erected in 2004, can be found in front of the Millikin Fine Arts Bldg. at Converse College in Spartanburg, SC. The statue was sculptured by Richard Miller, the same man responsible for creating five other statues of historic women, all of whom had ties to the Fine Arts.
Let’s celebrate Mary’s beautiful artwork, her bravery as well as her perseverance. She spent most of her life doing what she loved best, and lucky for us, we still get to enjoy her beautiful paintings; all of which are full of emotional depth and heart. Perhaps Pissarro says it best, “Blessed are they who see beautiful things where others see nothing.”