THE BOATING PARTY
                                           by Mary Cassatt
                                             1844-1926


Mary Cassatt was born in Pennsylvania in 1844. She was the fourth child of the five children born to the family. Her family traveled a lot and she had visited many countries by the time she was 10 years old.

In those days, women did not have professions, and there were very few women artists. Her family did not approve when she decided that she would become an artist.

She studied first in Philadelphia and then went to Paris to study painting. She admired the work of Edgar Degas, and was able to meet him.

Her family thought she should not be living in Paris alone, so in 1874 her sister, Lydia, came to live with her. Lydia was her best friend and sat and posed for many of Mary's paintings.

Three years later her parents came to Paris to also live with them. Lydia became very ill and died from a disease. Mary missed her very much. Her parents became elderly and she cared for them, but she still found time to paint.

Though she never had children of her own, she loved children and painted portraits of the children of her friends and family. Usually the mother/child pictures were not of an actual mother with her child. She would pick the models she wanted to use for the painting and ordinarily it was not the mother's own child who was pictured with her in the painting. She became known as the painter of mothers and children . You can view some of her beautiful paintings through the links on this page.

She lost her sight due to cataracts on her eyes in 1914 and was not able to paint during the later years of her life.