When we think of the Impressionists, we tend to think about Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne…and quite rightly, because they were titans of their art. However, less well-known to us (always the way, unfortunately, eh ladies?) were “les trois grandes dames” of Impressionism, namely Marie Bracquemond, Berthe Morisot and the subject of today’s blog, Mary Cassatt. These women more than held their own amongst their male counterparts; all three produced wonderful art and exhibited successfully at the Paris Salons.

Mary Cassatt was a young American artist who arrived in Paris in 1866, having quit the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts back home, due to the lack of inspiration and patronising attitude of the male students and teachers there. Although we associate the birth of feminism with the early 1900s, the first wave of feminism began as early as the 1840s, and some doors were opened to women, particularly in cosmopolitan Paris, to which Mary was drawn.

Not all doors were opened, however: women still couldn’t study art at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts so Cassatt signed up for private study with Jean-Léon Gérôme, (the Orientalist I wrote about back in March) and she became an advocate for women’s equality all her life. She became a friend and collaborator of Edgar Degas, too. They had studios a five-minute stroll apart, and Degas would regularly look in at Mary’s studio, offering advice and helping find models.

Cassatt’s art centred on the lives of women, and in particular she painted many works depicting the intimate bond between mother and child. It is that aspect I am showcasing here, with a gallery of pieces featuring some often touching depictions of mother and child, beginning with Young Mother Sewing, painted in 1900 and purchased a year later by influential art collector and feminist Louisine Havemeyer, who fittingly used it to raise money for the women’s suffrage cause.