On a Balcony

1875–1876

Salon jury rejects a picture, then accepts it

In 1875 the jury refuses one of her two submissions, then accepts it the following year after she darkens the background. She saw that women’s work was often dismissed unless the artist had a friend or protector on the jury, and she would not flirt with jurors to win favour.

1877

Meets Degas and is invited to join the Impressionists

Edgar Degas, whose pastels had once changed how she saw art, invites Mary to show her work with the Impressionists. At last she could work quite independently, without worrying about the jury’s judgement.

1877

The Salon rejects both of her pictures

In 1877 the jury rejects both of her entries, and for the first time in seven years she has no work in the Salon. It is the low point of her career.

10 April 1879

The 1879 Impressionist exhibition

Mary shows eleven works, among them “Lydia in a Loge, Wearing a Pearl Necklace”; critics call her colours too bright and her portraits too accurate, yet her work is not savaged as Monet’s is. The show, organised and underwritten by Gustave Caillebotte, is the group’s most successful to date and turns a profit.

autumn 1879 – winter 1880

Printmaking in Degas’s studio

Degas introduces Mary to etching: he owns a small printing press, and by day she works in his studio with his tools and press while in the evening she makes studies for the next day’s plate. It is when the two work most closely together, on a planned journal of prints.

1880–1881

The Impressionist exhibitions of 1880 and 1881

Mary takes part in the next two Impressionist exhibitions and remains an active member of the circle until 1886. The only American officially associated with the group, she would go on to exhibit in half of its later shows.