Was Mary Cassatt a mother?

2 years ago

2 minutes

NEW YORK – Renowned painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt never married or had children of her own but she excelled at creating a body of work painting mothers and children with a tenderness and intimacy few other artists have achieved.

Was Mary Cassatt an only child?

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.” A distant cousin of artist Robert Henri, Cassatt was one of seven children, of whom …

Why did Mary Cassatt paint mother and child?

As in most of her paintings, Cassatt did not seek to glamorise or sentimentalise her subjects; instead she wanted to depict the mothers as honest, clean-living, good-looking women. The first mother and child work by Mary Cassatt that I am featuring is one she completed in 1889, entitled Emmie and Her Child.

What are 3 interesting facts about Mary Cassatt?

10 Things You Might Not Know About Mary Cassatt

She descended from a stockbroker and bankers. …
She found her own way to educate herself. …
She was one of two American women to first exhibit in the Salon. …
She lost some of her early work in the great Chicago fire of 1871.

Did Mary Cassatt come from a wealthy family?

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born to a comfortably upper-middle-class family: her father was a successful stockbroker, and her mother belonged to a prosperous banking family. The Cassatts lived in France and Germany from 1851 to 1855, giving the young Mary an early exposure to European arts and culture.

Why did Mary Cassatt use light colored pastels in her paintings of mothers and their children?

As a dry medium, pastel was an ideal means to express the Impressionists’ new emphasis on spontaneity; as an opaque medium, its distinctive reflectance responded to the era’s fascination with the scintillating effects of natural light.