Mary Cassatt, Modern Woman - Softcover

Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman is the extensive, beautifully produced, coffee-table-size catalog of an exhibition of the same name at the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 1998. It is filled with 100 color plates and scores of other pictures, including Cassatt family snapshots, images of works by Cassatt's teachers and influential associates, postcards, and other related personal and historical items. Included too are six essays, on topics ranging from Cassatt's "modern education" to her intelligent guidance of the wealthy American art-lovers who later bequeathed their impressive impressionist collections to several major United States museums. While each has much to offer, Kevin Sharp's essay "How Mary Cassatt Became an American Artist" is particularly interesting and has great narrative flair. The sections on Cassatt's alternately infuriating and gratifying relationship with the legendary Paris dealer Paul Durand-Ruel are page-turners.

Readers who are mostly lookers, and who intend to spend their time with the large color plates, will also be amply rewarded. These do full justice to Cassatt's draftsmanship, color, and design, while reaffirming her as the warmly empathetic, but thoroughly unsentimental, observer of young mothers and their plump, beloved babies. The book has but one tiny defect, which will irritate only the most casual readers: its captions for the most part give only minimally identifying information for the people, paintings, and places pictured. When the plates and illustrations are not adjacent to the germane parts of the text, readers must peruse the essays in order to understand their significance. --Peggy Moorman

Modern study of Mary Cassatt has been largely, although not entirely, based upon the faultless work of Adelyn Breeskin, Frederick Sweet, and Nancy Mowll Mathews. Now the eight contributors to this huge volume have added truly monumental data on the life and work of Cassatt and to Impressionist art history in general. Six independent essays reveal new aspects of the artist's work and personality. The standout essay is Judith Barter's "Mary Cassatt: Themes, Sources and the Modern Woman." Others cover Cassatt's early realist style, her relationship to Degas, her American exhibitions, and Cassatt's impact upon the formation of art collections in the United States. In addition, there are 300 illustrations, including 124 excellent color plates, and a 25-page illustrated chronology with maps. Essential. British feminist art historian Pollock (Mary Cassatt, LJ 2/15/81) here offers her second book on Cassatt. Part of the respected British "World of Art" paperback series, the book is compact, well illustrated (184 images, 55 in color), and inexpensive. Technical art history terms explained for the introductory reader confirm this as intended for the general public and large libraries. As the back cover makes plain, it is also meant to be a radically new study redefining Cassatt in "the Parisian avant-garde and in American art." But the discussion too often descends to the polemical and cannot be depended upon for factual accuracy; there are sources but no traditional footnotes. The undercurrent of distaste for Cassatt's country of birth and family origins is unnecessary. An optional purchase.?Mary Hamel-Schwulst, Towson Univ., MD
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.