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Women Artists

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Metadata embedded, 2017

Art by American women constitutes eight percent of the Terra's collection and includes oil and watercolor paintings, pastels, and various types of prints. (updated 2/2019, following deaccessions)

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 2019 Metadata Embedded
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.
The Breeze
Mary Fairchild MacMonnies (later Low)
Date: 1895
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1987.23
Text Entries: Originally one of a pair of large paintings of mythological female subjects, The Breeze may have been inspired by MacMonnies' neighbor in Giverny, the dancer Isadora Duncan. Mary MacMonnies had only recently embarked on large scale painting with a commission to copy two frescoes by Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli housed in the Louvre; the delicate pastel palette and decorative quality of The Breeze reflects this experience as well as the influence of Macmonnies' contemporary, the French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
metadata embedded, 2020
Lilla Cabot Perry
Date: 1913
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1987.25
Text Entries: Ward, Lisa M. <i>Lilla Cabot Perry</i>. (exh. cat., Mongerson Gallery). Chicago, Illinois: Mongerson Gallery, 1984. Ill. p. 9 (black & white).<br><br> Martindale, Meredith. <i>Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist</i>. (exh. cat., National Museum of Women in the Arts). Washington, D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990. Text pp. 80, 155 (checklist); fig. 19, p. 84 (color).<br><br> Gomes, Rosalie. <i>Impressions of Giverny: A Painter's Paradise 1883–1914</i>. San Francisco, California: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995. Text pp. 81, 115; pl. 53, p. 84 (color).<br><br> Reymond, Nathalie. <i>Un regard américain sur Paris</i> (<i>An American Glance at Paris</i>). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text p. 74; ill. p. 72 (color).<br><br> Lévy, Sophie, et al. <i>Twarze Ameryki: Portrety z kolekcji Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940/Faces of America: Portraits from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940</i>. (exh. cat. International Cultural Center). Cracow, Poland: International Cultural Center, 2006. Ill. p. 99 (color).<br><br> Lecomte, Vanessa, editor. <i>Portrait of a Lady : peintures de photographies américaines</i> (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américaine Giverny and Musée des beaux-arts de Bordeaux). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2008. Text (checklist) p. 94.<br><br> Bardazzi, Francesca and Carlo Sisi, editors. <i>Americans in Florence: Sargent and the American Impressionists</i>. (exh. cat. Fondazione Plazzo Strozzi). Venice, Italy: Marsilio, 2012. Text, cat. no. 99, p. 237, ill. cat. no 99, p. 220 (color).<br><br> Tóbín, Colm, Marc Simpson, and Declan Kiely. <i>Henry James and American Painting</i>, (exh. cat. The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, New York). University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press and New York, New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017. Text, p. 41; ill. fig. 19, p. 41 (color).
metadata embedded, 2021
Lilla Cabot Perry
Date: c. 1898–1901
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1987.26
Text Entries: Gerdts, William H. <i>American Impressionism</i>. (exh. cat., Henry Art Gallery). Seattle, Washington: Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, 1980. Text p. 134 (checklist); ill. p. 149 (black & white). <br><br> <i>Master American Impressionists</i>. (exh. cat., Marietta/Cobb Fine Arts Center). Marietta, Georgia: Marietta/Cobb Fine Arts Center, 1983. Text p. 5; pl. 17, p. 5 (black & white).<br><br> Gerdts, William H. <i>American Impressionism</i>. New York: Abbeville Press, 1984. Pl. 92, p. 89 (color). <br><br> <i>American Paintings III</i>. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 1985. Text p. 81; ill. p. 81 (color).<br><br> Gerdts, William H. et al. <i>Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 60; fig. 53, p. 60 (black & white).<br><br> Gerdts, William H. et al. <i>Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 60; fig. 53, p. 60 (black & white).<br><br> Gomes, Rosalie. <i>Impressions of Giverny: A Painter's Paradise 1883–1914</i>. San Francisco, California: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995. Text p. 115; pl. 50, p. 81 (color).
metadata embedded, 2020
Lilla Cabot Perry
Date: 1924
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1987.27
Text Entries: Martindale, Meredith. <i>Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist</i>. (exh. cat., National Museum of Women in the Arts). Washington, D.C.: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990. Text pp. 84, 86, no. 64, p. 156; pl. 46, p. 87 (color).<br><br> Gerdts, William H. et al. <i>Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 59; fig. 50, p. 59 (black & white).<br><br> Gerdts, William H. et al. <i>Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 59; fig. 50, p. 59 (black & white).<br><br> Lévy, Sophie, et al. <i>Twarze Ameryki: Portrety z kolekcji Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940/Faces of America: Portraits from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940</i>. (exh. cat. International Cultural Center). Cracow, Poland: International Cultural Center, 2006. Ill. front cover (color), p. 100 (color).<br><br> Sgarbi, Vittorio et al. <i>L'Arte delle Donne dal Rinascimento al Surrealismo</i>. (exh. cat., Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy). Milan, Italy: Federico Motta Editore, 2007. Text p. 359; ill. p. 240 (color as <i>Thomas Sargeant Perry mentre legge il giornale</i>).<br><br> Muto, Shuji. <i>American Literature and Culture at the Turn of the Century.</i> Tokyo, Japan: Chuo University Press, 2008. Ill. p. 95 (black & white).
Metadata embedded, 2017
Mary Cassatt
Date: c. 1891–92
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1988.24
Text Entries: <i>Illustrated London News</i> 223 (June 11, 1953): 73. Text p. 73. <br><br><i>Mary Cassatt, 1844–1926</i>. (exh. cat., Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd.). London, England: Marlborough Fine Art, Ltd., 1953. Ill. p. 11 (as <i>Mere et Enfant</i>).<br><br>Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. <i>Mary Cassatt, Catalogue Raisonné: Oils, Pastels, Watercolors, and Drawings</i>. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970. Ill. no. 188, p. 98 (black & white).  <br><br><i>The Art of Mary Cassatt (1844–1926)</i>. (exh. cat., American Federation of the Arts). New York: American Federation of the Arts, 1981. No. 24, p. 100; ill. p. 42. <br><br><i>American Paintings</i> IV 1986. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 1986. Text p. 106; ill. frontispiece (color).<br><br>Atkinson, D. Scott et al. <i>A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art</i>. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-59, p. 168 (color). <br><br>Gerdts, William H. et al. <i>Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 248; pl. 71, p. 249 (color). <br><br>Gerdts, William H. et al. <i>Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 248; pl. 71, p. 249 (color). <br><br>Costantino, Maria. <i>Mary Cassatt</i>. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1995. Ill. p. 71 (color).<br><br>Reymond, Nathalie. <i>Un regard américain sur Paris (An American Glance at Paris)</i>. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text p. 28; ill. p. 29 (color).<br><br>Lévy, Sophie, et al. <i>Twarze Ameryki: Portrety z kolekcji Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940/Faces of America: Portraits from the collection of the Terra Foundation for American Art, 1770–1940</i>.  (exh. cat. International Cultural Center). Cracow, Poland: International Cultural Center, 2006. Text p. 90; ill. p. 91 (color).<br><br>Davidson, Susan, ed. <i>Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation</i>. (exh. cat., National Museum of China, Beijing; Shanghai Museum). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Chinese and English version; citing English version). Ill. p. 171 (color).<br><br> <i>Art In America: 300 years of Innovation.</i> Hong Kong: Wen Wei Publishing Co. Ltd, 2007. Text pp. 73–74 (in Chinese).<br><br>Davidson, Susan, ed. <i>Art in America: 300 Years of Innovation</i>. (exh. cat., The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, Russia). New York, NY: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation; Chicago, IL: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. (Russian version). Ill. p. 89 (color).<br><br>Pfeiffer, Ingrid and Max Hollein, eds. <i>Women Impressionists</i>. (Exh. cat., Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany) Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 2008.  Text pp. 167, 310 (checklist); ill. pp. 166 (color detail), p. 175 (color).<br><br>Southgate, M. Therese. <i>The Art of JAMA III: Covers and Essays from the Journal of the American Medical Association</i>. Chicago, Illinois: American Medical Association, 2011. Text pp. 36, 203; ill. opposite p. 36 (color).<br><br> Bourguignon, Katherine M. <i>American Impressionism: A New Vision 1880–1900</i>. (exh. cat., Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, National Galleries of Scotland, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza). Giverny, France: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, 2014. (English, French and Spanish versions). Text p. 27; ill. p. 59 (color).<br><br> Ikeda, Yuko; Pamela A. Ivinski; Maruko Kanai; Chinatsu Makiguchi; Nancy Mowll Mathews; Hideko Numata; Susan Pinsky; Marc Rosen; and Junko Uchiyama. <i>Mary Cassatt Retrospective</i>. (exh. cat. Yokohama Museum of Art; National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto). Yokohama, Japan: Yokohama Museum of Art, 2016. Text p. 211, cat no. 83 (checklist). Ill. 115 (color).<br><br> Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. <i>MOTHER!</i> (exh. cat., Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in collaboration with Kunsthalle Mannheim). Denmark: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2021. Ill. p. 93 (color).<br><br>
Metadata embedded, 2017
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.
In Arcadia
Bessie Potter Vonnoh
Date: c. 1926
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1989.3
Text Entries: Bessie Potter Vonnoh, wife of the painter Robert Vonnoh, took up sculpture at an early age, first as a pastime as an invalid child and later, as a teenager, under the guidance of sculptor and teacher Lorado Taft at the Art Institute of Chicago. Her first commission was for a large-scale allegorical figure of Art for the Illinois State Building at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. However, In Arcadia is far more typical of Vonnoh's oeuvre in that it depicts, on a comparatively small scale, classicized, youthful figures with intimacy and spontaneity rather than monumentality. In 1921 Vonnoh was the first woman sculptor to be elected a full member of the National Academy of Design.
2019 Metadata Embedded
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).
Mlle Luguet in a Coat and Hat
Mary Cassatt
Date: c. 1883
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1993.13
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. 48, p. 48; ill. p. 97 (black & white). <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. 34; ill. p. 34 (color).<br><br> Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. <i>Faces of America: Portraits of the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, 1770–1940</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text p. 30 (checklist); ill. p. 53 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]<br><br> Kennedy, Elizabeth and Sophie Lévy. <i>Visages de l'Amérique: le portrait dans la collection de la Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1770–1940</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2004. Text p. 30 (checklist); ill. p. 53 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]
2019 Metadata Embedded
Mary Cassatt
Date: c. 1893
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1993.14
Text Entries: A trellis of fruit trees covers the walls of a kitchen garden where two women are seen in flower-print dresses. Perched on a ladder, the first woman, her back to the viewer, is handing a piece of fruit to a child in the arms of the second. Mary Cassatt occupies a unique place in the history of American and French art. She was one of the few female artists of her time to be recognized by her peers for her varied talents as a painter, pastellist and printmaker. A resident of Paris from 1874 onwards, she was also the only American to be invited to show with the French Impressionist group. In the spring of 1890, Cassatt visited the important exhibition of Japanese art presented at the École des Beaux-Arts. There, she developed an enthusiasm for the woodcuts known as ukiyo-e. She was attracted to the aesthetic characteristics of these prints, such as subjects drawn from everyday life, the absence of traditional perspective, asymmetrical compositions, and the play between decorative motifs and flat colors. A few months later, she completed her first series of color prints "in the Japanese style," the most original works of her career. Though inspired by the Japanese prints, Cassatt found her subjects in the the bourgeois feminine world with which she was familiar. In this print, the artist creates a visual play of contrast between the fluid shapes of the flowery dresses the women wear and the the strong verticals and horizontals of the wall, the ladder and the bricks behind them.
2019 Metadata Embedded
Mary Cassatt
Date: 1890–91
Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection
Object number: 1994.4
Text Entries: Ives, Colta Feller. <i>The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints</i>. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1974. Text pp. 45–55 (discusses Mary Cassatt print <i>The Bath, </i>here titled <i>The Tub, </i>cited specifically on pp. 46–47 as Cassatt's first attempt to follow Utamaro's model).<br><br> Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. <i>The Graphic Work of Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné</i>. 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979. No. 143, pp. 61–62; ill. p. 140 (color).<br><br> Getlin, Frank. <i>Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Prints</i>. New York: Abbeville Press, 1980. Text p. 76; ill. p. 77 (color impression from The National Gallery of Art).<br><br> Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. <i>Mary Cassatt: Graphic Art</i>. (exh. cat., Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981. No. 32 (color impression from the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute).<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. 5, pp. 103–109.<br><br> Reymond, Nathalie. <i>Un regard américain sur Paris</i> (<i>An American Glance at Paris</i>). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1997. Text p. 28; ill. p. 26 (color). [specific reference to Terra print]<br><br> Barter, Judith A. <i>Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman</i>. (exh. cat., The Art Institute of Chicago). Chicago, Illinois: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1998. No. 56, p. 278 (color impression from The Art Institute of Chicago, acc. no. 1932.1287).<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 pp. 76–79; ill. pp. 76-79 (color).<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>The Extraordinary and the Everyday: American Perspectives, 1820–1920</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2001. Text p. 8; fig. 8, p. 8 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]<br><br> Cartwright, Derrick R. <i>L'Héroïque et le quotidian: les artistes américains, 1820–1920</i>. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2001. Text p. 8; fig. 8, p. 8 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]<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. 56 (checklist); ill. p. 61 (color).<br><br> Matthews, Nancy Mowll. <i>Mary Cassatt: Friends and Family</i>. (exh. cat., Shelburne Museum). Shelburne, Vermont: Shelburne Museum, Inc., 2008. Text p. 22; ill. fig. 24, p. 24 (color).