In the Ominbus. Mary Cassatt, 1844-1926

Cassatt chose women and children in unposed settings for many of her paintings. "In the Omnibus" depicts a woman of social status with her chaperone nanny holding the baby.

Mary Stevenson Cassatt, was born in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania in 1844 into a wealthy family. By the time she was ten she had traveled all through Europe with her family. After her return to America, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in Philadelphia and then traveled extensively again in Europe before settling in Paris in 1874. A strongly self-disciplined artist, she was true to her observation that there are two ways for the painter, "the broad and easy one the narrow and hard one." She initially made friends with Degas after he saw her works and invited her to join the Impressionists. She subsequently met Monet, Pissarro, Morisot, and other Impressionist painters. She was the only American whose work would appear in the company of these and other Impressionists in the exhibitions of 1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886. In an art world dominated by men, Cassatt was one of the few women recognized as belonging to the top ranks of artists.

Cassatt is best known for her paintings of mothers and children. She maintained a more progressive attitude toward women and children and displayed it in her works. Mother and child are unposed and natural, caught in the moment. Her highly personal style reflects the high key colors and lose brush work of the Impressionists as well as the composition and alignment influences of the Japanese masters, Utamaro and Toyokuni.

Cassatt urged her wealthy American friends and relatives to buy Impressionist paintings, and in this way, she exerted a lasting influence on American taste. She was largely responsible for selecting the works that make up the H.O. Havemeyer Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

After 1900, Cassatt's eyesight began to deteriorate and she ceased working in 1914. She died at her country home in Mesnil-Theribus, France, north of Paris, on June 14, 1926.

Medium : 1 print : drypoint and aquatint, hand-colored

Creator : Mary Cassatt, 1891

Note: Also known as "Interior of a Tramway Passing a Bridge"

Housed in the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress

Price: $120.00

Availability: Usually Ships in one to two weeks

Product #: FR0047