Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now Pittsburgh) May 25, 1844. She began classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia in 1860. In 1866 she went to France to study art with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Thomas Couture, among other prominent painters. She eventually came to stay in Paris and was known in her early career as a portrait painter. As her style became increasingly loose and her subject matter diverged from the standards of the Salon, she was invited to exhibit with the Impressionists by Degas after several of her entries to the Salon were rejected. The most well-known works of her career were produced during the period in which Cassatt was associated with the Impressionist painters. During her later life, her work was very popular in both Europe and the United States and she enjoyed substantial financial success from the sale of her paintings. Failing health forced her to stop painting in 1915. She died at her estate in Le Mesnil Théribus, France on June 14, 1926.