(1844-1926, American) "An Impressionist painter, Mary Cassatt is best known for her mother and child
compositions. Born in 1844 in Allegheny City, now part of Pittsburgh, she
was recognized by the turn of the century as one of the preeminent painters
both of her native country and of France, which she made her permanent home in
1875.
Cassatt spent her childhood in Pennsylvania, and then lived with her mother in
Europe from 1851 until 1858. She returned to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts from 1861 to 1865 and in 1866 went back to France, which she decided
was best suited for her professional goals. There she spent much time studying
works by artists living and deceased, and painted with Auguste Renoir, Alfred
Sisley, and Edgar Degas. Her first public success came at the Salon of
1868 with a painting praised by a New York Times critic for
its "vigor of treatment and fine qualities of color". Cassatt
continued to exhibit at the Salon through the mid-1870s, and attracted the
attention of Edgar Degas, who invited her to join the artists dedicated to the "new
painting", the Impressionists.
After
the final Impressionist exhibition of 1886, Cassatt began to experiment more
widely, transforming her imagery with references to Old Master Madonna and
Child paintings as well as Japanese prints.
Upon her death in 1926, Cassatt was honored by a number of
memorial exhibitions, and remains one of the most acclaimed American-born
artists. She is still the subject of major exhibitions, such as "Mary
Cassatt, Modern Woman," which opened at the Art Institute of Chicago in
1998. A traveling exhibition, it included 100 of the most beautiful of her
paintings, the first traveling retrospective of her work in 30 years." excerpted from Gallery Ro's biography for AskArt.com