Mary Cassatt
| Mary Cassatt | |
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Cassatt seated in a chair with an umbrella. Verso reads "The only photograph for which she ever posed."
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| Born |
Mary Stevenson Cassatt May 22, 1844 Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Died | June 14, 1926 (aged 82) Château de Beaufresne, near Paris, France |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Charles Chaplin, Thomas Couture |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | Impressionism |
| Signature | |
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 Cassatt's The Child's Bath
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Cassatt's In the Loge
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Cassatt's Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge
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| All from Smarthistory |
Mary Stevenson Cassatt (/kəˈsæt/; May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.
Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh. She was born into an upper-middle-class family: Her father, Robert Simpson Cassat (later Cassatt), was a successful stockbroker and land speculator. He was descended from the French Huguenot Jacques Cossart, who came to New Amsterdam in 1662. Her mother, Katherine Kelso Johnston, came from a banking family. Katherine Cassatt, educated and well-read, had a profound influence on her daughter. To that effect, Cassatt's lifelong friend Louisine Havemeyer wrote in her memoirs: "Anyone who had the privilege of knowing Mary Cassatt's mother would know at once that it was from her and her alone that [Mary] inherited her ability." The ancestral name had been Cossart. A distant cousin of artist Robert Henri, Cassatt was one of seven children, of whom two died in infancy. One brother, Alexander Johnston Cassatt, later became president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The family moved eastward, first to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, then to the Philadelphia area, where she started her schooling at the age of six.
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