Mary Cassatt: Paintings and Prints

[From front jacket flap] Mary Cassatt's paintings and prints have long been treasured as among the finest examples of American Impressionist art - a vivid and touching record of middle-class life in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Now, seventy-tow of Cassatt's most important paintings and graphics are meticulously reproduced here in full color - the first time that so many of her works have been made available at a popular prince. Introduced to painting in the art schools of Philadelphia, Mary Cassatt soon left for Paris - a bold and shocking move for a young woman in Victorian America - where she became acquainted with the leading, rebellious French Impressionists. Degas became her friend and mentor, and eventually one of her greatest admirers. She exhibited widely with the Impressionists in Europe, encouraged them (and was encouraged by them), and was instrumental in bringing the first Impressionist paintings to America. Her own luminous, delicate, and graceful works, chiefly interiors with women, children, or both, have often been compared to Raphael's for the beauty and dignity with which she captured the eternal theme of mother and child.In his text, the noted art critic and historian Frank Getlein (author of some twenty books, among the Bit of the Print and World's Great Paintings - H. W. Janson) relates the intimate details of Mary Cassatt's life to her paintings and tells of her relationships with fellow artists, while clearly defining her place in modern art.