Today we're rethinking everything we thought we knew about Mary Cassatt. On this episode of Big Blend Radio's World of Art Podcast, host Victoria Chick and Lisa D. Smith welcome Mary G. Morton, curator and head of French paintings at the National Gallery of Art, to talk about her new book, Cassatt Reconsidered, out this November from Getty Publications.
2026 marks the centennial of Mary Cassatt's death (born May 22, 1844, died June 14, 1926). Mary Morton makes the case for an artist who was bold, modern, and uncompromising. Cassatt's images of mothers and children are an extraordinary part of her work, but they're only part of the story. Here is what came up in the conversation.
Take a listen to the podcast episode here:
Key Conversation Highlights
Why a new look at Cassatt. Mary spent years reading how Cassatt has been characterized in textbooks, magazines, and newspapers, and found the account thin. The National Gallery holds the best Cassatt collection in the world, including the best print collection. Seven of its 12 oil paintings cannot leave the building under the terms of Chester Dale's bequest, so if you love Cassatt, you have to come to Washington.
A centennial year around the world. The National Gallery's installation of its Cassatt collection ran from February through the end of August. Chicago is marking the centennial with a show centered on the mural Cassatt created for the Women's Pavilion at the 1893 World's Fair, a major public commission that no other Impressionist received. Next comes the first major international loan show on Cassatt in France, opening in October at the Musée d'Orsay, then traveling to London and on to Boston.
Mary Cassatt - Lilacs in a Window
The image everyone pictures. Ask people what comes to mind when they think of Mary Cassatt and nearly all of them say mothers and babies. Mary calls that an extraordinary motif in her work, and she also points out that Cassatt represented much more of the lived experience of women in the late 19th century. Because she pictured subjects that the official art world did not consider serious, she never made it into the heroic story of modernism written across the 20th century.
An artist among the modernists. Cassatt deconstructed space to reconstruct it in a fresh, modern way, doing the same kind of innovative work in space, color, and touch as Cézanne, Degas, Courbet, Manet, and Morisot. She was also one of the great printmakers of the French 19th century, and Mary describes how intaglio printmaking and painting fed each other in her work.
Offering the Panal to the Bullfighter (Mary Cassatt, 1873), oil on canvas, Clark Art Institute.
Building a career on her own terms. The École des Beaux-Arts did not admit women until 1897. Cassatt arrived in Paris in 1865 and pieced together her own private teachers, studied by copying at the Louvre, and by 1872 had a painting accepted at the Salon and bought right away. Her family covered her living expenses, but her father would not pay for an art career, so she had to sell. Mary explains why selling matters for the historical record: works that never reach collectors rarely reach museums.
A business-minded family. Cassatt grew up among brilliant businesspeople. Her older brother Alexander ran the Pennsylvania Railroad, and her mother, Catherine, was an intellectual giant who read in several languages and followed current events.
Durand-Ruel and the label. Dealer Paul Durand-Ruel changed how the art market worked by packaging Impressionism for American buyers. He picked up Cassatt in the 1890s, saw that her mother-and-child pictures would sell, and Mary believes the "painter of mothers and babies" stamp originated with him.
Realism, not sentiment. Male artists often painted motherhood as idealized and sentimental. Cassatt showed the full range of emotion in caring for children, from ecstatic love to impatience, irritation, and boredom. Mary is clear that she doesn't want to undersell the maternity pictures, which are a huge contribution. Her point is about how art history and American museums handled them.
Why the book matters. Mary's goal is to bring art alive for people. Cassatt Reconsidered brings the work of excellent art historians to a broader audience and explains how the museum world works. Her advice is to visit museums with a critical eye, listen for a belittling tone, and ask why an object is not being taken seriously, so the same thing does not happen to artists today.
The cover painting. The portrait on the cover is the subject of Mary's introduction and a painting she has cared for at the National Gallery. She admits she first worried that a young woman who does not meet conventional standards of beauty would hurt sales, then recognized that as a sexist, superficial reaction, and Getty Publications knew it was the right choice. Cassatt took a genre traditionally made for the male gaze and restored dignity and interiority to the sitter. She gave the painting to Degas in 1886, and it passed from him to Louisine Havemeyer and then to Chester Dale.
It belongs to the public. Admission to the National Gallery is free, and Mary tells visitors she is a government employee and their curator, there to care for their pictures. The conversation closes with Victoria's story of a visit to an art museum at age 13 that changed the direction of her life.
Resources & Links
World of Art Podcast (New episodes air every 3rd Saturday.)
Victoria Chick is the founder of the Cow Trail Art Studio in southwest New Mexico. She received a B.A. in Art from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and was awarded an M.F.A. in Painting from Kent State University in Ohio. Visit her website at www.VictoriaChick.com and learn more about the Southwest Regional Museum of Art & Art Center.