Mary Cassatt

Cassatt, Mary, b. May 22, 1844, d. June 14, 1926 American painter and printmaker who exhibited with the Impressionists.
Her own works, on the occasions when they were shown in various mixed exhibitions in the USA, were very favourably received by the critics and contributed not a little to the acceptance of Impressionism there. Despite her admiration for Degas, she was no slavish imitator of his style, retaining her own very personal idiom throughout her career. From him, and other Impressionists, she acquired an interest in the rehabilitation of the pictural qualities of everyday life, inclining towards the domestic and the intimate rather than the social and the urban , with a special emphasis on the mother and child theme in the 1890s. She also derived from Degas and others a sense of immediate observation, with an emphasis on gestural significance.