Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman [Hardcover]

Judith Barter (Author), Mary Cassatt (Painter)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1998

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) holds a unique place in the history of art. One of the few women artists to succeed professionally in her era, she was the only American invited to exhibit with the French Impressionists. This handsome volume, richly illustrated with paintings, prints, and pastels spanning Cassatt's entire career, accompanies a major traveling exhibition that opens at The Art Institute of Chicago in October 1998.

Essays trace Cassatt's development from her early influences through her critical role in bringing Old Master and Impressionist art to the United States. The superb colorplates clearly demonstrate why Cassatt is considered one of North America's most important artists.

Supplementary works by Cassatt's contemporaries are reproduced along with numerous photographs and the first complete list of exhibitions in which Cassatt participated in her lifetime. The exhibition travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Judith A. Barter is Field-McCormick Curator of American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago.

George T. M. Shackelford is curator of European paintings, and Erica E. Hirshler is associate curator in the Department of American Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Kevin Sharp and Andrew Walker work in the Department of American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman is the extensive, beautifully produced, coffee-table-size catalog of an exhibition of the same name at the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 1998. It is filled with 100 color plates and scores of other pictures, including Cassatt family snapshots, images of works by Cassatt's teachers and influential associates, postcards, and other related personal and historical items. Included too are six essays, on topics ranging from Cassatt's "modern education" to her intelligent guidance of the wealthy American art-lovers who later bequeathed their impressive impressionist collections to several major United States museums. While each has much to offer, Kevin Sharp's essay "How Mary Cassatt Became an American Artist" is particularly interesting and has great narrative flair. The sections on Cassatt's alternately infuriating and gratifying relationship with the legendary Paris dealer Paul Durand-Ruel are page-turners.

Readers who are mostly lookers, and who intend to spend their time with the large color plates, will also be amply rewarded. These do full justice to Cassatt's draftsmanship, color, and design, while reaffirming her as the warmly empathetic, but thoroughly unsentimental, observer of young mothers and their plump, beloved babies. The book has but one tiny defect, which will irritate only the most casual readers: its captions for the most part give only minimally identifying information for the people, paintings, and places pictured. When the plates and illustrations are not adjacent to the germane parts of the text, readers must peruse the essays in order to understand their significance. --Peggy Moorman

From Library Journal

Modern study of Mary Cassatt has been largely, although not entirely, based upon the faultless work of Adelyn Breeskin, Frederick Sweet, and Nancy Mowll Mathews. Now the eight contributors to this huge volume have added truly monumental data on the life and work of Cassatt and to Impressionist art history in general. Six independent essays reveal new aspects of the artist's work and personality. The standout essay is Judith Barter's "Mary Cassatt: Themes, Sources and the Modern Woman." Others cover Cassatt's early realist style, her relationship to Degas, her American exhibitions, and Cassatt's impact upon the formation of art collections in the United States. In addition, there are 300 illustrations, including 124 excellent color plates, and a 25-page illustrated chronology with maps. Essential. British feminist art historian Pollock (Mary Cassatt, LJ 2/15/81) here offers her second book on Cassatt. Part of the respected British "World of Art" paperback series, the book is compact, well illustrated (184 images, 55 in color), and inexpensive. Technical art history terms explained for the introductory reader confirm this as intended for the general public and large libraries. As the back cover makes plain, it is also meant to be a radically new study redefining Cassatt in "the Parisian avant-garde and in American art." But the discussion too often descends to the polemical and cannot be depended upon for factual accuracy; there are sources but no traditional footnotes. The undercurrent of distaste for Cassatt's country of birth and family origins is unnecessary. An optional purchase.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson Univ., MD
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; 1st edition (October 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810940892
• ISBN-13: 978-0810940895
• Product Dimensions: 12.4 x 9.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #907,066 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars beautifully presented, somewhat interesting, August 6, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman (Hardcover)

A collection of interesting essays (and representations of her works) on the artist and her life give the reader good, broad and varied sense about who Mary Cassatt was and how important she was in helping America to discover impressionism. MC is an artist that merits to be better recognized and this book serves a good purpose. - Yet for people that have already studied MC and want to learn more on detailed aspects of her art, this book will probably not be sufficient - Griselda Pollock has written a book i found very useful called 'mary cassatt painter of modern women' which has some well-founded arguments about her works and intentions and is very interesting and more original than this collection of well presented and nevertheless good essays.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INFO..., February 2, 2007

By 

1stVideo "1stvideo" - See all my reviews

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was one of the few women artists to have succeeded professionally in her era, and the only American invited to exhibit with the French Impressionists. Extensively illustrated with paintings, prints and pastels spanning Cassatt's whole career, this volume, published to accompany a travelling exhibition in the USA, contains essays which trace the artist's development from her early influences to her critical role in bringing Old Master and Impressionist art to the United States. Supplementary works by Cassatt's contemporaries are reproduced, together with numerous photographs and a complete list of exhibitions in which she participated in her lifetime.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book for the price, March 5, 2004

By 

Camil Moujaber (Owosso, Michigan USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mary Cassatt (Hardcover)

Cassatt was no Sargent or Hassam, but her style reflects sensitivity and charm. This is a great book to own about Cassatt, full of good plates and at a bargain price. You can't go wrong with this one!