Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh. She was born into favorable circumstances: her father, Robert Simpson Cassat later Cassatt , was a successful stockbroker and land speculator, and her mother, Katherine Kelso Johnston, came from a banking family.
The ancestral name had been Cossart. Cassatt was a distant cousin of artist Robert Henri. Cassatt was one of seven children, of which two died in infancy.
Her family moved eastward, first to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, then to the Philadelphia area, where she began schooling at age six. Cassatt grew up in an environment that viewed travel as integral to education; she spent five years in Europe and visited many of the capitals, including London, Paris, and Berlin. She had her first lessons in drawing and music while abroad and learned German and French.
Also exhibited at the exhibition were Degas and Pissarro, both of whom would be future colleagues and mentors. Even though her family objected to her becoming a professional artist, Cassatt began studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the early age of fifteen, and continued her studies during the years of the American Civil War.
Part of their concern may have been Cassatt's exposure to feminist ideas and the bohemian behavior of some of the male students, of which one was Thomas Eakins, later the controversial director of the Academy.
Though most were not bent on making a career of art, they viewed art as a valid means of achievement and recognition, and a socially valuable talent. Cassatt, instead, was determined to become a professional artist. Impatient with the slow pace of instruction and the patronizing attitude of the male students and teachers, she decided to study the old masters on her own. She later said, "There was no teaching" at the Academy.
Female students could not use live models until somewhat later and the principal training was primarily drawing from casts. Cassatt decided to end her studies at that time, no degree was granted. She finally overcame her father's objections and in , she moved to Paris, with her mother and family friends acting as chaperones. Since women could not yet attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, she applied to study privately with masters from the school. Clearly skilled, she was accepted to study with Jean-Leon Gerome, a highly regarded teacher known for his hyper-realistic technique and his depiction of exotic subjects.
A few months later Gerome would also accept Eakins as a student. Cassatt augmented her artistic training with daily copying in the Louvre she obtained the required permit, which was necessary to control the "copyists", usually low-paid women, who daily filled the museum to paint copies for sale. The museum also served as a social meeting place for Frenchmen and American female students, who like Cassatt, were not allowed to attend cafes where the avant-garde socialized.
In this manner, fellow artist and friend Elizabeth Gardner met and married famed academic painter William Bouguereau. Toward the end of , she joined a painting class taught by Charles Chaplin, a noted genre artist. In , Cassatt also studied with artist Thomas Couture, whose subjects were mostly romantic and urban. On trips to the countryside, the students drew from life, particularly the peasants going about their daily activities.
In one of her paintings, A Mandoline Player, was accepted for the first time by the selection jury for the Paris Salon. This work is in the Romantic style of Corot and Couture, and is one of only two paintings from the first decade of her career that can be documented today. The French art scene was in a process of change, as radical artists such as Courbet and Manet tried to break away from accepted Academic tradition and the Impressionists were in their formative years.
Cassatt's friend Eliza Haldeman wrote home that artists "are leaving the Academy style and each seeking a new way, consequently just now everything is Chaos". Cassatt, on the other hand, would continue to work in the traditional manner, submitting works to the Salon for over ten years, with increasing frustration, before striking out with the Impressionists. Returning to the United States in the late summer of as the Franco-Prussian War was starting-Cassatt lived with her family in Altoona.
Her father continued to resist her chosen vocation, and paid for her basic needs, but not her art supplies. She placed two of her paintings in a New York gallery and found many admirers but no purchasers. She was also dismayed at the lack of paintings to study while staying at her summer residence. Cassatt even considered giving up art, as she was determined to make an independent living. Shortly afterward, her work attracted the attention of the Archbishop of Pittsburgh, who commissioned her to paint two copies of paintings by Correggio in Parma, Italy, advancing her enough money to cover her travel expenses and part of her stay.
With Emily Sartain, a fellow artist from a well-regarded artistic family from Philadelphia, Cassatt set out for Europe again. Within months of her return to Europe in the autumn of , Cassatt's prospects had brightened. She attracted much favorable notice in Parma and was supported and encouraged by the art community there, "All Parma is talking of Miss Cassatt and her picture, and everyone is anxious to know her". After completing her commission for the archbishop, Cassatt traveled to Madrid and Seville, where she painted a group of paintings of Spanish subjects, including Spanish Dancer Wearing a Lace Mantilla , in the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
But determined to rebel and gain financial independence, she continued to paint and seek commissions until she did just that. She found her own way to educate herself Despite her parents' objections, Cassatt began studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia when she was However, Cassatt found the attitudes of the male students and teachers patronizing and the pace too slow. As a woman, she was banned from using live models and was only permitted to draw from inanimate objects.
Fed up, she left and travelled to Paris with her mother and applied to study privately with masters from the Ecole des Beaux Arts women were not allowed to actually attend the school and spent many long days in the Louvre, copying works from there.
She was one of two American women to first exhibit in the Salon Cassatt began taking classes with Charles Chaplin and Thomas Couture , which she found to be a much more enriching experience as the students took trips to the countryside where the students could draw from life. Soon after, in , one of her paintings was accepted for the Paris Salon, making her one of the first American women to exhibit there the other being Elizabeth Jane Gardner who was accepted at the same time.
She lost some of her early work in the great Chicago fire of In , Cassat returned home to live with her family in Pennsylvania, and with her parents still objecting to her career, she travelled to Chicago to try and sell some of her paintings.
In Chicago things got worse when the Great Chicago Fire, which burned for 3 days and ravaged just over 3 square miles of Chicago, destroyed much of her work. Fortunately, shortly after, the archbishop of Pittsburgh commissioned her to paint two copies of works by Corregio , and the money allowed Cassatt to travel back to Europe to Parma, Italy.
She was the only American artist to exhibit with the Impressionists in Paris Cassatt permanently moved to Paris in , but began to find the conventional tastes of the Salon tiring, and she disdained the way that they were often dismissive of female artists. One day, she was approached by Edgar Degas and invited to exhibit with the Impressionists , who were considered radical for their lack of formality, varied techniques, and use of vibrant color in distinct brush-strokes.
Cassatt exhibited her work with the Impressionists in Paris from onwards, and in she was included in the first major exhibition of Impressionist art in the United States, held at the Durand-Ruel galleries in New York.
She continued to specialize in scenes of women in domestic interiors, with an Impressionist emphasis on quickly captured moments of contemporary life, and she expanded her technique from oil painting and drawing to pastels and printmaking. Japanese art had been very popular in Paris since it was featured at the Exposition Universelle, and Cassatt like many Impressionists incorporated its visual devices into her own work. She also shared with the Impressionists a general conviction that academic art was outdated and a commitment to exploring fresh new means of depicting everyday modern life.
By the s, Cassatt was particularly well known for her sensitive depictions of mothers and children. These works, like all her portrayals of women, may have achieved such popular success for a specific reason: they filled a societal need to idealize women's domestic roles at a time when many women were, in fact, beginning to take an interest in voting rights, dress reform, higher education, and social equality.
Yet Cassatt's depictions of her fellow upper-middle-class and upper-class women were never simplistic; they contained layers of meaning behind the airy brushwork and fresh colors of her Impressionist technique. Cassatt herself never married or had children, choosing instead to dedicate her entire life to her artistic profession.
She shared and admired progressive attitude of Bertha Honore Palmer, a businesswoman and philanthropist who invited Cassatt to paint a mural for the World's Columbian Exposition and who felt that "women should be someone and not something. After , Cassatt suffered from failing health and deteriorating eyesight.
However, she maintained close friendships with other artists and important art world figures in France, from Pierre-Auguste Renoir to the American collectors Harry and Lousine Havemeyer. Although she and Degas suffered a rift in their friendship during the infamous Dreyfus affair of the late s Cassatt, like Pissarro and Monet, was pro-Dreyfus, while Degas sided against Dreyfus , they later made amends.
In Cassatt was recognized for her cultural contributions by the French government, which awarded her the order of Chevalier of the Legion d'honneur. She made her last visit to the United States in By this time she had suffered several personal losses; her beloved sister, Lydia, died after a long illness in , and her brother Alexander, the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, died in By , due to her increasing blindness, Cassatt was no longer able to work, although she continued to exhibit her art.
She lived primarily in Grasse during World War I before returning to her country home, a chateau located in Le Mesnil-Theribus, fifty miles northwest of Paris. Cassatt died on June 14, Cassatt was active into the s, and by her late years she was able to witness the emergence of modernism in Europe and the United States; however, her signature style remained consistent.
The waning critical taste for Impressionism after her death in the s meant that her influence on other artists was limited.
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