MARY
CASSATT
Painter of Modern Women
Griselda Pollock
This
radically new study redefines the American artist Mary Cassatt's status
in the Parisian avant-garde and in American art —placing her
work in the wider context of nineteenth-century feminism and art theory.
Cassatt's art explores a New Woman's perspective on the spaces of
modernity: at the theatre, in the drawing-room and garden, in the
studio. Admired by Degas — who invited her to show with the
Impressionists in 1877 — Cassatt's work reveals her profound
study of Old Masters and keen responses to contemporary French and
Spanish painters. Griselda Pollock puts a new emphasis on Cassatt's
interest in Manet and her influence on American collections of French
modernism. She also argues that Cassatt's experimentation with etching
and pastel from the late 1880s enabled her to represent women and
children without sentimentality but with a deepening awareness of
a complex psychological charge.
This
radically new study redefines the American artist Mary Cassatt's status
in the Parisian avant-garde and in American art —placing her
work in the wider context of nineteenth-century feminism and art theory.
Cassatt's art explores a New Woman's perspective on the spaces of
modernity: at the theatre, in the drawing-room and garden, in the
studio. Admired by Degas — who invited her to show with the
Impressionists in 1877 — Cassatt's work reveals her profound
study of Old Masters and keen responses to contemporary French and
Spanish painters. Griselda Pollock puts a new emphasis on Cassatt's
interest in Manet and her influence on American collections of French
modernism. She also argues that Cassatt's experimentation with etching
and pastel from the late 1880s enabled her to represent women and
children without sentimentality but with a deepening awareness of
a complex psychological charge.