Mary Cassatt at Work, American Pioneer of Print and Color in French Impressionist Movement

The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco spotlights Mary Cassatt as a bold Modernist pioneer and a professional artist in the French Impressionist movement. The exhibition “Mary Cassatt at Work” (1844-1926) comprehensively documents the technic experimentation and progress she made via various medium that gave form to the beloved images of women and children that have long been warmly embraced by the audience. Cassett’s subject matters are traditional and feminine; however, the illustrative techniques were radical and new at the time, bringing pioneering approach in the presentation of women and children in everyday lives of her social circles. Cassett’s historic status as a recognized member of the French Impressionist movement and an international advocate of American Impressionist art is fully manifested from the extensive collection of 99 pieces of artwork spanning over 25 years.

Born into a wealthy family in Pennsylvania in 1844, Cassatt formally studied fine arts as a teenager, then moved to Paris to further follow her pursuit in Europe. Against her father’s wish for her to marry and have children, Cassatt was expected to financially support her studio as an artist herself. Cassatt chose traditional subject and focused her attention on women and children in her own social class. Utilizing such familiar subjects with exceptional femininity demonstrated her savvy marketing approach to what the market at the time would expect and accept from a female artist. The tender moments between women and children and their activities demonstrated by pioneering use of color, pastel and print showcased refreshed and renewed realism.

Cassatt’s revolutionized modern printmaking stands out in this exhibition. She utilized dry point in her technique and was fondly commented as a “needle worker” by a Chicago art critic at the time. Her needle work, however, was drastically different from the needles held by other society women at the time for embroidery. She explained her method as drawing an outline in dry point and transfer this to the two other plates, then apply aquatint wherever the color was to be printed on the plate. She made it sound simple, but the seventeen states layered off the first print in the series indicate a rather complicated process. A series of prints in the exhibition showcased the process she invented and utilized painstakingly to produce images in color. Cassatt often tirelessly pulled off twenty-five impressions of the final state once she was satisfied with an image. After attending an exhibition of Japanese colored woodcuts in Paris in 1890, Cassatt created a series of ten prints showing a modern-day Parisian woman’s life with the influence of Japanese traditional printmaking. Such technique and process were inventive and daring during her time, showcased her pioneering experiments in prints and color.

The exhibition, organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, is the first major US presentation of Cassatt’s work. The Legion of Honor is the sole West Coast venue, October 5, 2024- January 26, 2025.