American Artist Mary Cassatt Biography

Biography of American Artist Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was an American Artist and Painter. Mary Cassatt was one of the innovative Impressionists, rare for an American and for a woman. Her real name was Mary Stevenson Cassatt. She was born on 22nd May 1844 in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, USA.

Mary Cassatt was daughter of wealthy investment broker and her upbringing reflected her family’s high social standing. Her father Robert S. Cassatt was a successful stockbroker and her mother Katherine Kelso Johnston, came from a banking family.

Mary Stevenson Cassatt was best known for her progression of paintings of a mother and child, she also portrayed designer society. Cassatt grew up in Pennsylvania, but lived in Germany and France for four years throughout her childhood. At the age of seven her family left for Paris on France. She entered in Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy of the fine Arts at age of 16. In 1865 she studied old Masters paintings in Paris.

In 1866 against her father’s wishes, she studied and painted in Paris, Spain, Italy, and Holland. In 1870, soon after the eruption of the Franco-Prussian War, Mary Cassatt unwillingly returned home to live with her parents. The Young woman artist had obtained attractive good skills in traditional art style and in 1872 a Mary Cassatt painting was even acknowledged by the judges of the Salon.

By 1883 Mary Cassatt was emphasizing more the linear feature, and the 1890 demonstration of Japanese prints in Paris also influenced her style. From 1890 to 1891 Mary Cassatt made a series of ten color prints, known as The Ten. She was commissioned for a mural for the Woman’s Building at the Chicago World's Fair in 1892. She sustained to make prints until 1896.

A 1910 trip to Egypt with her brother Gardner and his family would prove to be a rotating a point in Mary Cassatt’s life. In later life she suffered from ill health and failing eyesight and was completely blind at her death. She died on 14th June 1926 at her home at Mesnil-Beaufresne, France. Read More Information Click Here.