Mary Cassatt: Painter of Modern Women (World of Art)

The American painter Mary Cassatt, who rubbed elbows with the impressionists over a century ago, looks ready for a boom, with a big traveling exhibition of her work touring the Chicago Art Institute, the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts in 1998-1999. It would be difficult to find a more intelligent introductory guide than this one by feminist art critic Griselda Pollock, who teaches social and critical histories at the University of Leeds, England. Pollock's most familiar previous book is Old Mistresses: Women, Art, and Ideology, and she scotches the widespread idea of Mary Cassatt as a soft and wimpy painter of babies, similar to Auguste Renoir, who is also victimized by critics today for his soft female images. Instead, Pollock sees Cassatt as the "painter of modern women" who was unafraid of such tough artistic influences as Degas, Courbet, and Manet. In this clearly written guide, Cassatt's courage shines through, but also her variety. Readers may begin to look at the women and children in the paintings and discern new expressions in their faces, not just the sweet sentiment that has usually been interpreted therein. This is a revelatory book to accompany what looks likely to be a revelatory exhibit. --Benjamin Ivry