New Book Reassesses Mary Cassatt's Radical Modernist Vision

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A new publication, Cassatt Reconsidered, challenges the established image of Mary Cassatt, the US-born Impressionist, as a merely sentimental painter of mothers and daughters. The book arrives as renewed attention is drawn to Cassatt, marking the centennial of her death in 1926.

Authored by Mary G. Morton, a curator and head of French paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the book positions Cassatt more broadly within radical French Modernism. Morton examines how the art world, including her dealer, shaped Cassatt's reputation.

This reassessment coincides with major exhibitions dedicated to Cassatt, including presentations at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, on view through January 31, 2027; the Art Institute of Chicago, on view through January 3, 2027; and the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut, scheduled from November 7, 2027, to February 14, 2027. Morton's work scrutinizes Cassatt's oeuvre and contextualizes it within the experiences of women in modern Paris, arguing for a fresh perspective on the artist.

Morton spoke about her motivation for the reassessment, citing a 2014 exhibition at the National Gallery focusing on Cassatt's technical collaboration with Degas. She also mentioned an encounter with PhD candidate Nicole Georgopulos, which transformed her perception of Cassatt's 1905 painting, Woman with Sunflower.

Morton explained that Cassatt's dealer played a significant role in narrowing her reputation by marketing her as the“modern Madonna” and employing critics to promote this view. While this strategy successfully sold her work, it did not serve her well in art historiography. Additionally, the rise of American art history in the 20th century led to Cassatt's inclusion in US museum collections alongside other American artists, often divorcing her work from its aesthetic context within French Modernism.“She looks loud, garish, awkward, whereas if you put her with Degas, Renoir and Morisot, she fits in,” Morton observed.

Morton hopes that museums, scholars, and the public will move beyond the confined categorization of Cassatt. She described Cassatt as“the most successful avant-garde artist of the 19th century to represent the lived experience of women in modern urban Paris.” Cassatt, Morton noted,“created a fresh visual vocabulary for women's interests and concerns, refusing the oppressive social norms of her class and producing an extraordinary body of work. Cassatt brings us women's side of the story.”

The book, Cassatt Reconsidered, published by Getty Publications, is 208 pages long and priced at $35 for the hardcover edition. Its primary goal is to encourage readers who are familiar with Cassatt as a painter of mothers and children to reexamine her art. Morton expressed her hope that the book will prompt people to visit museums and experience Cassatt's work as she does:“brilliantly expressive, innovative objects that relay a unique vision of humanity and of women's lives as they were lived more than 100 years ago.”

Source: The Art Newspaper

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