Mary Cassatt’s life hit a turning point in 1877 when the artist Edgar Degas invited her to exhibit with the Impressionists. Cassatt was overjoyed: “At last I could work with absolute independence.” Free from the rigid and tiresome conventions of the Paris Salon (the prevailing venue in which artists showed their work at the time), Cassatt began to pursue her own creative vision. This path led her to printmaking, a field altogether new to her. She quickly gained proficiency and became known as one of the most innovative printmakers of the nineteenth century. In 1879 she partnered with Degas and Camille Pissarro on a project to publish a journal devoted to the fine art of prints. Although the publication never came to fruition, the project drove Cassatt toward ever more radical experiments in printmaking. These revealed a different side of the American artist who had moved into the center of the French art world.
Curated by Justin McCann, Lunder Curator of Whistler Studies at the Colby Museum, and Shalini LeGall, Chief Curator, Susan Donnell and Harry W. Konkel Curator of European Art, and Director of Academic Engagement at the Portland Museum of Art, Inside Out: The Prints of Mary Cassatt examines Cassatt’s printmaking from the perspective of the artist herself. It focuses on intersections between her prints and her personal concerns with identity and selfhood, family and child care, creativity and making. Visitors will engage closely with an artist who used printmaking to capture and make sense of the people and the spaces nearest and dearest to her.
Inside Out: The Prints of Mary Cassatt will be on view June 17–November 1, 2021.
