Mary Cassatt: Reflections of Women's Lives

This book supplies excellent reproductions of most of Mary Cassat's most famous paintings. Having seen the original of the cover painting in the Art Institute in Chicago, I can say the often distorted color tones are accurately photographed here.The text is a very readable discussion of how Mary Cassat's paintings reflect women's lives in the late nineteenth century. Those looking for more painterly criticism--composition, palatte, influences, brush-work, etc. will not find much of that in this book. As Digby Baltzell wrote in his "Puritan Boston, Quaker Philadelphia," by 1900 American painting was dominated by John Singer Sergeant, Cecilia Beaux, and Mary Cassat, all of whom shared a Yankee background (mixed with French for Cassat and Beaux), connections in Philadelphia, extensive European experience, and a firm place in the social elite. Without idealization or false nostalgia, Debra Mancoff shares Mary Cassat's loving regard for the importance of the feminine side of this world of gentility. Did I say it was a great deal? If good reproductions in a solid hardback binding of a great painter's oeuvre are what you are looking for this is a very good buy.