Mary Cassatt: The American Impressionist

"I have touched with a sense of art some people—they felt the love and the life. Can you offer me anything to compare to that joy for an artist?"

This essay is part of an ongoing series celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the First Impressionist Exhibition, which debuted in Paris in 1874. If you’d like to read other essays on the history of Impressionism, you can do so here.

Breakfast in Bed, Mary Cassatt ca. 1897. Via the Huntington Library.

Early morning, the sound of little feet coming down the hallway rouses a young mother from her rest. Bleary eyed, desperate for a cup of tea, she nonetheless obliges her little one as the child reaches for her. A toddler cannot fathom that her mother is exhausted, that she really would rather sleep in. As soon as she is settled in her mother’s arms, the child’s needs are met for the moment, and her eyes are transfixed on something new in the distance. But the mother’s eyes are on the child, and one can only wonder what might be going through her mind.

In Mary Cassatt’s art, women are not passive models; the mother featured above in Breakfast in Bed (1897) is actively engaged in the scene. H…