Mary Cassatt: Professional Artist
I’m the author of The Cassatt Sisters: A Novel of Love and Art (October 2025). Escape into Art is a place you’ll find paintings and miscellanea about American Impressionist Mary Cassatt and her circle of artist friends, along with delicious bites from Paris during la Belle Époque, the Beautiful Age.
“Mary Cassatt plotted her career at a time when the old institutions of the ‘Fine Arts’ were in crisis and the new conditions for modern art had not yet been established. One of the features of the transition from the guild and patronage system of the ancient régime to the museum and gallery system of modern art was that artists established for themselves a new status as professionals.”
- Dave Beech, “On Despising Amateurs Properly,” from the anthology Mary Cassatt at Work
Women from the nineteenth century, especially those from an upper middle class background like Mary Cassatt, were encouraged to study and create art—painting, singing, playing piano, dancing, and embroidering or other handwork. These hobbies, known as “accomplishments,” were socially acceptable pursuits for someone like Mary, as long as she remained an amateur.
But as you can see in the determined expression of the above self-portrait, painted one year after she was invited to join the Impressionists, Mary Cassatt set her sights early on becoming a professional artist. Throughout her life she felt the need to differentiate herself from the title of amateur, which simply meant women who pursued art without need or desire for financial gain. She prized and prioritized work because she was determined to have an independent life, earning commissions from her paintings that allowed her to be free from her father’s financial support.
Though Mary often painted tranquil domestic scenes—women taking tea, crocheting, and bathing children—she was an ambitious working woman. She did not marry or have children of her own. She pursued art at a time when ladies did not work. Mary defied social and familial conventions, especially the expectations of her father who once told her it would be almost better, in his eyes, if she were dead.
I will tell you that her stubborn, banker father (with her mother and older sister) eventually moved to Paris to live with Mary. This is when my forthcoming novel, The Cassatt Sisters, begins.
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Until The Cassatt Sisters is published, I’ll keep a flame burning here—like an old gas lamp on the rue Laffitte, the charming cobblestone street that was once the center of Parisian art. Merci for coming along!