Mary Cassatt: a radical impressionist in Grasse

11 hours ago

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As I write this, an exhibition named ‘L'indépendante' ('The independent woman’) is in progress at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. It is of the work of Mary Cassatt, an American artist who was an active and prominent member of the Impressionist movement. The exhibition will be transferred to the National Portrait Gallery in central London (under the byline ‘Radical impressionist’) from March to June next year.

Towards the end of Mary’s life, she took refuge in Grasse from the Parisian winter and then the proximity of war.

Photograph of Mary Cassatt in 1913 (Frick Collection). On the reverse is written, "The only photograph for which she ever posed. Courtesy of Durand-Ruel." Paul Durand-Ruel was her dealer (as he was also for Renoir). It looks from the background as if this image was taken in the south, so quite likely at Villa Angeletto in Grasse.

Mary Cassatt's Life

Mary was born near Pittsburgh into a wealthy family, of Huguenot descent, in 1844 and as a child travelled extensively with them in Europe. She trained as an artist in Philadelphia and moved to Paris in 1866, studying with several artists. One of her paintings, in a style typical for the time, was shown at the Paris Salon in 1868.

Mary Cassatt, 'The Mandolin Player' — Mary Cassatt, '*The Mandolin Playe*r', 1868. She had been rejected for the Salon in the year before, so she entered this work using the pseudonym, 'Mary Stevenson'. Stevenson was the surname of her mother.

After a short period back in the USA (perhaps due to the Franco-Prussia war and its ‘Paris Commune’ aftermath), she returned to Europe and in 1874 took a studio in Paris.

Probably prejudiced by their attitude to women, she quarreled with the art establishment, and in 1877 was invited by Edgar Degas to join the Impressionist group. Their one original female member, Berthe Morisot, became a friend, but it was Degas who influenced her most. They had adjacent studios, he introduced her to pastels, engraving and print-making, and she helped to promote his work in the USA.

Later, however, they grew apart and subsequently clashed over the Dreyfus affair (Mary was a strong Dreyfusard, but Degas, who had claims to nobility ‒ his name was actually 'de Gas' ‒ was an anti). Cassatt’s feminist ideals were opposite to those of Degas (he reputedly once wrote of one of her works "No woman has the right to draw like that"!).

Around 1884, Degas made this portrait in oils: *Mary Cassatt Seated, Holding Cards* (National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC)

By her most productive years, in the 1890s, Cassatt had apparently became less blunt in her opinions and was something of a role model for young American artists. She was even awarded the Légion d’Honneur by France in 1904, by which time critics tell us that she had become hostile to post-Impressionism (and, later, to Fauvism).

Reputation

Mary and her work are perhaps better known in the country of her birth, the USA, than in France, where she lived for most of her life. She is known not only as one of the handful of female Impressionists but for her images of women. As an early advocate of women's equality, her beliefs as well as her work echo strongly with modern feminist themes. According to one critic, she "initiated profound beginnings in creating the image of the “new” woman".

Mary Cassatt, Reading “Le Figaro”, — Mary Cassatt, *Reading “Le Figaro”*, 1878, (Collection Mrs. Eric de Spoelberch): the artist’s mother is deliberately shown reading a mainstream daily newspaper rather than a women’s magazine or a novel

Her work has a special emphasis on the themes of domestic (although definitely middle-class) life and of the maternal bonds of women with their children. She herself was never married.

She was also a considerable promoter of her fellow artists; according to the French Ministry of Culture, she tried during the 1890s to have ‘Olympia’ by Manet and ‘Impression: Sunrise’ by Monet acquired by American collectors.

Villa Angeletto

Cassatt first became an hivernante (‘winter-resident’) in Grasse in 1913, when she was 69 years old, although she had previously spent the winter of 1893-94 in Antibes.

The Boating Party, 1893-4, by Mary Cassatt — *The Boating Party*, 1893-4, by Mary Cassatt, painted in Antibes. In 1914, she wrote a letter from Villa Angeletto to her dealer, Durand-Ruel, telling him not to sell it. The letter concerned is in an edition of her correspondence with Durand-Ruel to be published in 2027.

Villa Angeletto stands in the heart of the ‘English colony’ area to the north-east of Grasse’s old town on what is now avenue Francis de Croisset on the route to Magagnosc. It dates from 1891, but it was refurbished in 1912-13 as a residence for seasonal visitors by Joséphine Chiris, widow of Léon Chiris, the perfumier and politician who had built the nearby Chateau St Georges. It is not especially large (five bedrooms today), but it stands on 3,000 square metres of garden.

Villa Angeletto, Grasse — Villa Angeletto today (image from the villa's own website). The tower is reminiscent of the houses nearer Grasse on the same road, Villa Thérese and Maison Sanganeria (see my blog here).

Mary Cassatt must have been the first tenant, because letters exist from her on Villa Angeletto letterhead from 1913 onwards. She had an apartment in Paris and a main home at the Château de Beaufresne *, about 70km north of the capital. During 1914-1918, it was at times within 50 perilous kilometres of the front line, so it appears that she stayed in Grasse for most of the war.

Work at Villa Angeletto

By the end of 1914, Cassatt was almost blinded by cataracts and so she completed little work in Grasse after that time, but one of her letters dated in January of that year says “I am working, I brought back quite a few pastels from the countryside...”. Art historians seem to agree that she made at least one oil painting, ‘Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun’, and a number of pastels, especially of mothers and their children, in Grasse.

'Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun’, Mary Cassart, 1914 (private collection)

Two pastels from 1914 typical of Mary Cassart's 'Mother and Child' theme. (Left) '*Mother in purple holding her child*' (Right) '*Baby Lying on His Mother s Lap, reaching to hold a scarf*'

Guests and Letters

Some accounts of Mary’s life suggest that she saw some of the, by then ageing, Impressionists at Villa Angeletto, but that seems to have been more a romantic wish than a reality. Friends like Pissarro and Morisot were dead, while Degas was in 1912 near blind and it seems unlikely he ever left Paris. Renoir was living at Cagnes sur Mer during the war, but he was already ill and old by 1914 and there is no direct evidence that he visited her in Grasse.

Mary Cassart 1914 — Rather at variance with the note on the 1913 photo, this slightly grim image dates from 1914. There were several photographers in Grasse at the time making these kind of portraits. (Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution)

Sight may have been a problem, but it didn’t stop Mary from writing many letters from Villa Angeletto. Some of them are archived at the Musée d'Impressionnismes, close to Claude Monet's house in Giverny.

She sent several detailed letters in 1913 to an art critic who was writing her biography, correcting his draft about her upbringing and clarifying what was shown at the early Impressionist exhibitions.

In September 1917 she wrote to a dealer about the imminent death of Degas, with her thoughts on his impact upon her own life and work as well as, more broadly, how he influenced art in general. Writing to another dealer in February 1918, she instructed him, perhaps in anticipation of the Germans’ spring offensive of that year, to evacuate her Degas paintings from her apartment in Paris.

Despite their having fallen out over Dreyfus and feminism, Mary helped to shape Degas’ legacy through her correspondence from Grasse and Paris. She wrote to collectors, critics and biographers and to a degree managed his reputation by deliberately destroying the direct letters between them.

Some of her family missives are in the Smithsonian in Washington, mainly to her nephew Robert Kelso Cassatt, and his wife, Minnie. This is one from 1921 on Villa Angeletto notepaper; despite her sight, her handwriting is impressively clear: