Synopses & Reviews
One of the greatest--and most popular--of the Impressionists, Mary Cassatt created some of her most inventive and appealing images in the print medium. Documenting a startling new discovery, this exquisitely produced book unveils 204 major prints and drawings that have been sequestered in a private collection for nearly half a century.
Sometime before 1914, as Cassatt neared the end of her career, she was coaxed into selling her "studio collection"--etchings, monotypes, color aquatints, and drawings that she had kept for sentimental or archival purposes--to the dealer Ambroise Vollard. He added a few pieces to the collection from other notable Cassatt fans, including her friend Edgar Degas. When World War I disrupted the art market, Vollard tucked this remarkable collection away and never exhibited it before his death on the eve of World War II. The entire group was acquired by a French collector, who showed only a few works to friends and selected members of the art community.
Many of the prints, which are in pristine condition, are previously unknown variants of Cassatt's work; others have never before been seen in any version. Because Cassatt's output as a printmaker was quite small and because her color prints are praised for being among her most radically innovative works, this discovery is an extraordinary event in an art world where demand for Cassatt's art seems insatiable.
The catalogue section of the book documents in exacting detail and in superb illustrations the 41 color prints, 127 black-and-white prints, and 36 drawings that constitute what is now known as the studio collection. Essays by leading experts tell the story of this rare collection and explore Cassatt's virtuosity as a printmaker. The result is an important and unusually beautiful publication that will intensify interest in this much-loved artist and stimulate a new appreciation of her significant contributions to modern printmaking.
Review
"For anyone with a special interest in the aesthetics and connoisseurship of modern printmaking, this show and its scrupulously annotated catalog are not to be missed."
--Hilton Kramer, New York Observer
Review
"[Cassatt] may have taken fashion and motherhood as her subjects, but she did so with a triumphant post-feminist calm, before feminism itself had been invented . . . Engaging her printwork may be, it is also deft and inventive . . . Mary Cassatt portrays a vastly more experimental artist than the one suggested by her more considered pastels and oils."
--Charles Darwent, Times Literary Supplement
About the Author
Warren Adelson is President of Adelson Galleries and a member of the catalogue raisonné committees for John Singer Sargent and Mary Cassatt. He contributed to, among others, Childe Hassam, Impressionist, Sargent Abroad: Figures and Landscapes, and John Singer Sargent's "El Jaleo." Jay E. Cantor, Director of the Cassatt catalogue raisonné committee, wrote Winterthur and contributed to Childe Hassam, Impressionist. He established the American Paintings Department at Christie's and was founding president of the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. Susan Pinsky and Marc Rosen are private art dealers and experts in prints and drawings. Pinsky was Director of Sotheby's Print Department in New York from 1988 to 1992. Rosen reorganized Sotheby's Print Department and became senior expert in the Department of Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. Barbara Stern Shapiro is Curator for Special Projects at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her publications include contributions to Camille Pissarro, Pleasures of Paris: Daumier to Picasso, and Mary Cassatt: The Color Prints.