Impressionist Mary Cassatt emerges from obscurity at the Musée d’Orsay

The Musée d’Orsay is staging a major exhibition on Mary Cassatt to mark 100 years since her death, bringing renewed attention to an American artist who played a significant role in Impressionism. Despite her close friendship with Edgar Degas and his high regard for her work, Cassatt has had only one retrospective in France since her death, in 2018.

The exhibition covers her career and draws on rarely shown works and new archival sources; it will also travel to London’s National Portrait Gallery and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The article traces the barriers she faced as a woman artist, her commitment to independence and suffrage, and how family disputes and the dispersal of collections contributed to her diminished profile.