Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt

Date: 1894

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1988.25

Text Entries: Mary Cassatt began her art training in Philadelphia at the age of sixteen, impatient with the academic emphasis on draftsmanship and eager to begin figure painting in oil. It was only after establishing herself in France as a portrait and genre painter, and exhibiting at Edgar Degas' invitation with the Impressionists, that Cassatt was inspired to develop an innovative, graphic and spare drawing style influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e prints pulled from wood blocks. Her famous series of ten color prints of 1890-1891, which included The Lamp, depict the enclosed and implicitly complete world of the upper class Parisian woman. Cassatt combined drypoint with aquatint techniques, used diluted printer's ink rather than paint, and employed the help of a professional printer; she explained that rather than duplicating Japanese printmaking methods, she had attempted to infuse a Japanese "atmosphere" into these works. Between 1892 and 1897, she designed nine more prints. Under the Horse Chestnut Tree typifies Cassatt's fascination with tender but unsentimental images of mothers and children; though she never married, she once declared that "There's only one thing in life for a woman; it's to be a mother." Cassatt probably executed Summertime at her country home of Mesnil-Beaufresne, where she lived year-round after her mother's death in 1895. The composition of the painting, including facing female figures in a rowboat cut off at right and an absent upper horizon line, reappears in one of her prints; though her range of subjects was comparatively small, Cassatt often explored a single composition in multiple media. Her use of bright, pure color, expressive brushwork and an extreme vantage point (in this case, from above) to depict a scene of modern recreation reveal Cassatt's thorough understanding of the Impressionists' experiment.

Mary Cassatt

Date: 1896–97

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1987.17

Text Entries: Mary Cassatt began her art training in Philadelphia at the age of sixteen, impatient with the academic emphasis on draftsmanship and eager to begin figure painting in oil. It was only after establishing herself in France as a portrait and genre painter, and exhibiting at Edgar Degas' invitation with the Impressionists, that Cassatt was inspired to develop an innovative, graphic and spare drawing style influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e prints pulled from wood blocks. Her famous series of ten color prints of 1890-1891, which included The Lamp, depict the enclosed and implicitly complete world of the upper class Parisian woman. Cassatt combined drypoint with aquatint techniques, used diluted printer's ink rather than paint, and employed the help of a professional printer; she explained that rather than duplicating Japanese printmaking methods, she had attempted to infuse a Japanese "atmosphere" into these works. Between 1892 and 1897, she designed nine more prints. Under the Horse Chestnut Tree typifies Cassatt's fascination with tender but unsentimental images of mothers and children; though she never married, she once declared that "There's only one thing in life for a woman; it's to be a mother." Cassatt probably executed Summertime at her country home of Mesnil-Beaufresne, where she lived year-round after her mother's death in 1895. The composition of the painting, including facing female figures in a rowboat cut off at right and an absent upper horizon line, reappears in one of her prints; though her range of subjects was comparatively small, Cassatt often explored a single composition in multiple media. Her use of bright, pure color, expressive brushwork and an extreme vantage point (in this case, from above) to depict a scene of modern recreation reveal Cassatt's thorough understanding of the Impressionists' experiment.

Mary Cassatt

Date: 1896–97

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1992.8

Text Entries: Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. <i>The Graphic Work of Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné</i>. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979. No. 160, p 66; ill. p. 152 (black & white).<br><br> Mathews, Nancy Mowll and Barbara Stern Shapiro. <i>Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints</i>. (exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts). Boston, Massachusetts: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989. No. 22 (fifth state), pp. 189–91.<br><br> Adelson, Warren et al. <i>Mary Cassatt: Prints and Drawings from the Artist's Studio</i>. (exh. cat., Adelson Galleries, Inc.). Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000. Text p. 106; ill. pp. 106 (black & white), p. 107 (color).<br><br> <i>Mary Cassatt: Impressions</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2005; Paris: Le Passage Paris–New York Éditions, 2005. Text p. 57 (checklist); ill. p. 74 (color).