Mary Cassatt: I Am Independent Published by MFA Publications, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Edited with text by Caroline Corbeau Parsons, Erica E. Hirshler, Sarah Moulden, Anne Robbins. Text by Lionel Britten, Christophe Charle, Laura Corey, Nicole Georgopulos, Kimberly Jones, Tatsuya Saito, Valérie Sueur, Jennifer Thompson, Luke Uglow. Unpublished materials and new technical analyses revitalize the legacy of the only American Impressionist—a truly independent spirit Published with Musée d'Orsay/Éditions Hazan/National Portrait Gallery, London.
“I can live alone and love to work,” painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt said of herself. This publication, and the exhibition it accompanies, sketch a new portrait of the beloved artist, emphasizing the notion of independence that underpinned both her life and her art. Cassatt forged a path of her own. Not only was she the only American to exhibit with the Independents (as the Impressionists were then called), but she was also a savvy player in the art market, a landowner, an innovative printmaker, a painter of large public murals and a strong supporter of women’s suffrage. These characteristics are fully evident in Cassatt’s work, which boldly proclaims that the everyday lives of women—on the street, at the theater, in the home, in nature—are suitable subjects for modern art.
Drawing on unpublished letters and hitherto unexplored French sources, this book provides new perspectives on the artist’s career. Thematic essays take a fresh technical look at Cassatt’s subjects, examining how she deliberately employed a lack of finish to mark her own presence and creative power.
After studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) moved to Paris in 1868 and would live there until her death. Frustrated with the inequity and fickleness of the Paris Salon, she accepted Edgar Degas’ invitation to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1877. She became one of three women and the only American to belong to the group.
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