Mary Cassatt at Work

The only American to be a member of the French Impressionists, Mary Cassatt committed herself to a career as a professional artist in a male-dominated art world of the late 19th century. She made the social, intellectual, and working lives of modern women a core subject of her prints, paintings, and pastels.

In her lifetime, Cassatt was recognized for her intimate depictions of women and children. Mary Cassatt at Work presents the artist as a modernist pioneer whose work is filled with restless experimentation. In 21 works from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, one from a private collection, and eight from HoMA’s own collection, along with the famed artist’s personal correspondence, we can see how she helped shape the Impressionist movement and transformed the course of modern art.  

Cassatt first exhibited with the Impressionists at the invitation of Edgar Degas in 1879 and quickly emerged as a key member of the movement. Alongside scenes of women at the opera, visiting friends, and taking tea, Cassatt produced many images of “women’s work”—knitting and needlepoint, bathing children, and nursing infants. These images suggest parallels between the work of art making and the work of caregiving.  

The exhibition calls attention to the artist’s own processes of making—how she used her brush, etching needle, pastel stick, and even fingertips to create radical art under that pushed the creative boundaries of her era.

Mary Cassatt at Work is the first major showing of the artist’s oeuvre in 25 years. And it is a rare opportunity for the Hawai‘i community to delve into the work of an Impressionist artist who has been a part of HoMA since it opened in 1927. Cassatt’s print The Banjo Lesson was among the group of works gifted to the museum by founder Anna Rice Cooke, creating its core collection.  

Mary Cassatt at Work is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  

The organizing curators are Jennifer Thompson, Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection; and Laurel Garber, Park Family Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings, Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

The curators for the Honolulu Museum of Art’s presentation are Halona Norton-Westbrook, Director and CEO and Alejandra Rojas Silva, Curator of European and American Art.

Major support is provided by  

Additional support provided by
Monica Wrenn Chun
Laura Goo

TOP BANNER
The Letter, 1890-1891. Color drypoint and aquatint on laid paper, third state of three. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Bequest of Aaron E. Carpenter, 1970