Art Flight: Mary Cassatt

This is new - Virtual Art Flights!  I know, it's not the same as painting in a studio set up with materials, friends, and mimosas, but it will have to do for now.  We'll continue Art Flights in person with a longer slide show and more information when social distancing is lifted.  Until then, let's get together online!

We are confined to our own homes and gardens these days, trying to curb the spread of a terrible virus. I can't help but think about how this was the norm for women artists of the 19th century.  American artist, Mary Cassatt, was one of those artists confined by social expectations to stay close to home.  This is one reason so many of her paintings are of women and children - her closest subjects.

Mary Cassatt was born in 1844 in Pennsylvania, to an upper-middle class family.  She moved to Paris with her sister in 1866 to study art, but being a woman, was not allowed to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.  That didn't stop her.  She took private lessons and practiced by copying works at the Louvre.  We can't visit the Louvre at the moment, but you can visit virtually at Google Arts and Culture!

She was friends with Edgar Degas, and was invited to exhibit her work in the Impressionist Salon of 1879.  She experimented with different mediums, but kept her subject matter consistent - women and children!

Mary Cassatt was active in the women's suffrage movement, and lived a long, artistic life until 1926, when she died in Paris at the age of 81.  Have fun exploring Mary Cassatt's works, and find time to paint!  

Stay healthy, and carve a space for creativity wherever and whenever you can.  Spring is here, and there are plenty of images around us all to be inspired by - even if it's your own children, pets, or flowers in your own home!
Melissa