その頃、Mary Cassattの人生では
生涯をすべて見る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.
1877
Her family moves to Paris to live with her
Her parents join Mary in Paris, returning with her sister Lydia, and the whole family settles in a large fifth-floor apartment at 13 Avenue Trudaine. Neither Mary nor Lydia is married, and Mary decided early in life that marriage would be incompatible with 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.
