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At a time when art was largely the domain of men, American artist Mary Cassatt (1844 – 1926) broke through traditional molds for women and rose to overwhelming artistic success.

Cassatt chose to immortalize the everyday lives of women and children in her paintings, going much against the advice of her American male contemporaries and teachers. Never one to follow convention, she gave herself over wholly to her artistic career. “I can live alone and I love to work,” she once said.

The only American to paint and exhibit with the original Impressionists in France, Cassatt was close friends with Edgar Degas. Standing before one of her canvases for the first time in 1874, he famously exclaimed, “It’s true. There is someone who feels as I do.”

Mary Cassatt is known for her paintings of women reading, sewing, knitting and doing everyday things—but her true passion was painting mothers and children. With a loving touch, Cassatt depicted tender, intimate scenes of 19th century motherhood.

While Cassatt never married nor had children of her own, she was pivotal in nurturing the Impressionist Art movement in its infancy. Devoted to her profession, she claimed, “A woman artist must be ... capable of making primary sacrifices.”