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Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was born in Pennsylvania and raised in Philadelphia and Europe. She belonged to the American upper class of her era, her father Robert Cassatt was a successful stockbroker and real estate investor and her mother Katherine Kelso Johnston came from prominent banking family. In 1861 Mary enrolled in the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Art and after the Civil War pursued her art studies in Europe finally settling in Paris in the 1870’s. By escaping both her family and her country Mary ensured that she would never settle for the prescribed future of young women of her class: marriage and the conventional round of social duties in the stifling milieu of Philadelphia society.

Her closest friend in the Paris art world, the artist Edgar Degas introduced her to his friends, the newly formed Impressionist group, with whom Mary began exhibiting. She, in turn, introduced her French artist friends and their art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel to her wealthy American connections like Henry and Louisine Havermeyer. In great part thanks to her, American collectors soon became the most enthusiastic buyers of the new art.

In Paris Mary Cassatt painted her milieu: family, friends, visitors, fashionable women and children from both French and American society. She became the subtle chronicler in painting, much like Henry James in literature, of the habits, fashions and psychology of wealthy American expatriates. Her work ethic, her practical sense and her flair for business, insured that she became one of the most accomplished art professionals of her day. Along with Whistler, Henry James  and Edith Wharton she served as one of the most vital links between the American and French cultural scenes of the “Belle Epoque”.

Join Chris Boïcos, founder of Paris Art Studies, former art history professor at the University of Delaware and the University of Southern California in Paris, for this lecture and slide show. Discover the world of artist Mary Cassatt.