Mary Cassatt Biography

Artist. Born on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania. Mary Cassatt was one of the leading artists in the Impressionist movement of the later part of the 1800s. Born into a prosperous family, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from 1861 to 1865.

Traveling abroad, Mary Cassatt studied and painted in Paris, Italy, Spain, and Holland from 1866 to 1874. She finally settled in Paris, which became her home for the rest of her life. Befriended by Edgar Degas, she was soon characterized as an Impressionist painter in both style and subject matter. By 1883 she was emphasizing more the linear aspect, and the 1890 exhibition of Japanese prints in Paris also influenced her style. She never married, but her own family gradually joined her in Paris. After 1910 her increasingly poor eyesight virtually put an end to her serious painting.

Mary Cassatt died on June 14, 1926. She is best known for her luminous portraits of women and children, such as The Morning Toilet (1886) and Mother Feeding a Child (1898). A less recognized legacy was her influence in getting many Americans to acquire Impressionist and other contemporary French paintings now in U.S. museums.