1844-1926 Mary Cassatt Galleries Within months of her return to Europe in the autumn of 1871, Cassatt??s prospects had brightened. Her painting Two Women Throwing Flowers During Carnival was well received in the Salon of 1872, and was purchased. 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 (1873, in the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution). In 1874, she made the decision to take up residence in France. She was joined by her sister Lydia who shared an apartment with her. Cassatt continued to express criticism of the politics of the Salon and the conventional taste that prevailed there. She was blunt in her comments, as reported by Sartain, who wrote: ??she is entirely too slashing, snubs all modern art, disdains the Salon pictures of Cabanel, Bonnat, all the names we are used to revere??. Cassatt saw that works by female artists were often dismissed with contempt unless the artist had a friend or protector on the jury, and she would not flirt with jurors to curry favor. Her cynicism grew when one of the two pictures she submitted in 1875 was refused by the jury, only to be accepted the following year after she darkened the background. She had quarrels with Sartain, who thought Cassatt too outspoken and self-centered, and eventually they parted. Out of her distress and self-criticism, Cassatt decided that she needed to move away from genre paintings and onto more fashionable subjects, in order to attract portrait commissions from American socialites abroad, but that attempt bore little fruit at first. In 1877, both her entries were rejected, and for the first time in seven years she had no works in the Salon. At this low point in her career she was invited by Edgar Degas to show her works with the Impressionists, a group that had begun their own series of independent exhibitions in 1874 with much attendant notoriety. The Impressionists (also known as the ??Independents?? or ??Intransigents??) had no formal manifesto and varied considerably in subject matter and technique. They tended to prefer open air painting and the application of vibrant color in separate strokes with little pre-mixing, which allows the eye to merge the results in an ??impressionistic?? manner. The Impressionists had been receiving the wrath of the critics for several years. Henry Bacon, a friend of the Cassatts, thought that the Impressionists were so radical that they were ??afflicted with some hitherto unknown disease of the eye??. They already had one female member, artist Berthe Morisot, who became Cassatt??s friend and colleague. Degas, Portrait of Miss Cassatt, Seated, Holding Cards, c. 1876-1878, oil on canvasCassatt admired Degas, whose pastels had made a powerful impression on her when she encountered them in an art dealer's window in 1875. "I used to go and flatten my nose against that window and absorb all I could of his art," she later recalled. "It changed my life. I saw art then as I wanted to see it." She accepted Degas' invitation with enthusiasm, and began preparing paintings for the next Impressionist show, planned for 1878, which (after a postponement because of the World??s Fair) took place on April 10, 1879. She felt comfortable with the Impressionists and joined their cause enthusiastically, declaring: ??we are carrying on a despairing fight & need all our forces??. Unable to attend cafes with them without attracting unfavorable attention, she met with them privately and at exhibitions. She now hoped for commercial success selling paintings to the sophisticated Parisians who preferred the avant-garde. Her style had gained a new spontaneity during the intervening two years. Previously a studio-bound artist, she had adopted the practice of carrying a sketchbook with her while out-of-doors or at the theater, and recording the scenes she saw. Summertime, c. 1894, oil on canvasIn 1877, Cassatt was joined in Paris by her father and mother, who returned with her sister Lydia. Mary valued their companionship, as neither she nor Lydia had married. Mary had decided early in life that marriage would be incompatible with her career. Lydia, who was frequently painted by her sister, suffered from recurrent bouts of illness, and her death in 1882 left Cassatt temporarily unable to work. Cassatt??s father insisted that her studio and supplies be covered by her sales, which were still meager. Afraid of having to paint ??potboilers?? to make ends meet, Cassatt applied herself to produce some quality paintings for the next Impressionist exhibition. Three of her most accomplished works from 1878 were Portrait of the Artist (self-portrait), Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, and Reading Le Figaro (portrait of her mother). Degas had considerable influence on Cassatt. She became extremely proficient in the use of pastels, eventually creating many of her most important works in this medium. Degas also introduced her to etching, of which he was a recognized master. The two worked side-by-side for awhile, and her draftsmanship gained considerable strength under his tutelage. He depicted her in a series of etchings recording their trips to the Louvre. She had strong feelings for him but learned not to expect too much from his fickle and temperamental nature. The sophisticated and well-dressed Degas, then forty-five, was a welcome dinner guest at the Cassatt residence. The Impressionist exhibit of 1879 was the most successful to date, despite the absence of Renoir, Sisley, Manet and C??zanne, who were attempting once again to gain recognition at the Salon. Through the efforts of Gustave Caillebotte, who organized and underwrote the show, the group made a profit and sold many works, although the criticism continued as harsh as ever. The Revue des Deux Mondes wrote, ??M. Degas and Mlle. Cassatt are, nevertheless, the only artists who distinguish themselves??and who offer some attraction and some excuse in the pretentious show of window dressing and infantile daubing??. Cassatt displayed eleven works, including La Loge. Although critics claimed that Cassatt??s colors were too bright and that her portraits were too accurate to be flattering to the subjects, her work was not savaged as was Monet's, whose circumstances were the most desperate of all the Impressionists at that time. She used her share of the profits to purchase a work by Degas and one by Monet. She exhibited in the Impressionist Exhibitions that followed in 1880 and 1881, and she remained an active member of the Impressionist circle until 1886. In 1886, Cassatt provided two paintings for the first Impressionist exhibition in the United States, organized by art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Her friend Louisine Elder married Harry Havemeyer in 1883, and with Cassatt as advisor, the couple began collecting the Impressionists on a grand scale. Much of their vast collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. She also made several portraits of family members during that period, of which Portrait of Alexander Cassatt and His Son Robert Kelso (1885) is one of her best regarded. Cassatt??s style then evolved, and she moved away from Impressionism to a simpler, more straightforward approach. She began to exhibit her works in New York galleries as well. After 1886, Cassatt no longer identified herself with any art movement and experimented with a variety of techniques.   Related Paintings of Mary Cassatt :. | The Lamp | After the Bath | The Portrait of a young girl | Mothe helping children a bath | Child in a Straw Hat |
Related Artists:
Leopold Carl Muller
Austrian born 1834 - died 1892
Edgar Degas
French Realist/Impressionist Painter and Sculptor, 1834-1917 French painter, draughtsman, printmaker, sculptor, pastellist, photographer and collector. He was a founder-member of the Impressionist group and the leader within it of the Realist tendency. He organized several of the group exhibitions, but after 1886 he showed his works very rarely and largely withdrew from the Parisian art world. As he was sufficiently wealthy, he was not constricted by the need to sell his work, and even his late pieces retain a vigour and a power to shock that is lacking in the contemporary productions of his Impressionist colleagues.
Georges Laugee
Georges Laugee was born in Montivilliers on December 19, 1853. His father, Desire Laugee, was an important French Realist artist; a contemporary of Jules Breton and specialized in portraying the workers in the field. Georges received his early training with his father and then, like many artists of his time, continued his studies at le Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There he studied at the ateliers of Isidore Pils and Henri Lehmann where he mastered the art of life studies and sketching. In 1877 he made his debut at the Paris Salon and in 1881 was awarded the bronze medal for his Salon entries of that year: En Octobre and Pauvre aveugle. Following his love of nature and the farm worker, Laugee focused on scenes of everyday life. His works, often featuring the peasants tending their animals or working in the fields, are filled with light and realism. Among the works that Georges chose to exhibit at the Paris Salons were; his 1890 submissions Le Repos and Le Retour des Champs; 1897 submission Sous leaverse (In the Storm) and his 1904 works Deux Amies and Au Temps des bles murs, which portrayed peasant girls in the country. At the Salon of 1906 he exhibited Soleil Couchant (Sunset) and Heure doree (Golden Hour) and continued to exhibit works of similar subject matter through 1928. In 1889 he participated in the Exposition Universelle, where he received a bronze medal and in the Exposition Universelle of 1900 was awarded the silver medal for his painting entitled Au printemps de la vie (In the Springtime). From 1907 -- 1909 Laugee was a Membre du Comite de la Societe des Artistes Français and was a member of the Jury at the Salon from 1908 -- 1910. Laugee painting entitled The Favorite. exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1891 and a very similar composition to Bergere et Mouton (featured below) - was illustrated in Famous Paintings of the World, published in 1894. The accompanying caption reads as follows: In every family, however impartial the parents try to feel, there is always one child for whom, could she bring herself to confess it, the mother has a place in her heart a little warmer than she keeps for any other. The little shepherdess in this charming picture is exemplifying this universal truth of human nature, in her quiet encouragement of the approaches of the favorite lamb of her little flock. This is the pet lamb that she helps over all the stony places, and with which she shares even her own frugal meal. It is a simple story the artist has chosen to tell; but he has set it in a scene of tender and idyllic beauty, thoroughly appropriate to the gentle theme of affection he has selected for the central thought. He has contrasted effectively the simplicity of the shaded hillside nook, speckled with daisies and peopled with the inoffensive flock, and the ripe, full glory of the day, resplendent in the high-banked clouds, and reflected from the still surface of the breezeless summer lake. The photograph reproduction of this canvas has very successfully preserved the painty qualities of the original, so completely transferring to the engraving the technique of the artist that it is impossible that this should be anything other than what it is -- a direct engraving from a masterly painting in oil colors. Laugee first atelier, located at 20, boulevard Flandrin, Paris, was also the home of the great realist artist Julien Dupre brother-in-law) and just after Dupre death in 1910, Laugee moved to 23, boulevard Lannes. By 1923 he had relocated to 123, Rue de la Tour; where it appears that he remained for the rest of his life.