Many American artists traveled to Paris, France, to further their careers. Several of the American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists that studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote letters home to family and friends describing their lives there. One of these artists was Mary Cassatt, and here you will find letters dating from her time living in France in 1905.
Many American artists traveled to Paris, France, to further their careers. Several of the American portraitists, realists, impressionists, and abstract artists that studied, lived, and worked in Paris, France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries wrote letters home to family and friends describing their lives there. One of these artists was Mary Cassatt, and here you will find letters dating from her time living in France in 1905.
Painter Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) lived and worked in Paris, France. She was one of the preeminent Impressionists known for her depictions of the social and domestic lives of women and their children. Cassatt began her art studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of sixteen, and then in 1865, she traveled to Paris to further her art studies under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Thomas Couture, and augmented these studies with daily copying at the Louve. From 1868 to 1877, she traveled to Italy, Spain, Belgium, and Holland to view and copy the old masters, and produced works that were accepted into the Paris Salon. She continued to exhibit Impressionist paintings to critical international acclaim, and became a mentor to American artists. She spent the rest of her life living in France.
Explore the rest of the fully digitized Mary Cassatt letters on the Archives of American Art website!