Philadelphia Museum of Art pays tribute to Mary Cassatt

From May 18 to September 8, 2024, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents “Mary Cassatt at Work”, the first large-scale exhibition of the artist’s work in the U.S. in a quarter century.

Source: Philadelphia Museum of Art · Image: Mary Cassatt, “In the Loge”, 1879. Pastel with gold metallic paint on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs Sargent McKean, 1950-52-1

Pennsylvania-born and a celebrated member of the French Impressionists, Mary Cassatt built a groundbreaking career through hard work and artistic vision. For six decades, Cassatt was a committed, professional artist, making the social, intellectual, and working lives of modern women a core subject of her prints, paintings, and pastels.  She once wrote: “Oh the dignity of work, give me the chance of earning my own living, five francs a day and self-respect.” 

“Mary Cassatt at Work” presents over 130 of her works in various media to show her evolving practice as an artist and demonstrate her commitment to the “serious work” of artmaking. It will present new findings about her materials and working methods—which were advanced and radical for her era—based on detailed technical studies of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s significant Cassatt holdings. 

“Art was Mary Cassatt’s life’s purpose and living,” said Sasha Suda, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “This exhibition will focus on Cassatt’s professionalism, her biography, and the wider Parisian world she inhabited.  It’s my hope that this exhibition will reshape contemporary conversations about gender, work, and artistic agency.” 

“Mary Cassatt at Work” features works from the PMA’s extensive collection, including some of Cassatt’s most celebrated paintings and prints, as well as loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Viginia Museum of Fine Arts, and private collections.