cassat mary nancy mowll mathers (1 résultats)

light green full cloth hardcover 8vo. (octavo). dustwrapper in protective plastic book jacket cover. fine cond. binding square & tight. covers clean. edges clean. contents free of markings. dustwrapper in vg+ / near fine cond. wrinkling & a couple of smallt tears on the rear, not price clipped. nice clean copy. no library markings, store stamps, stickers, bookplates, no names, inking, underlining, remainder markings etc~. first edition so stated. first printing (nap). b&w frontis. 360p. "more than 50 (b&w) illustrations." chronology. genealogy. sources. selected bibliography. index. biography. autobiography. memoirs. art history. impressionism. painting. ~ Mary Cassatt's letters, like her paintings, are filled with revealing details. This selection of 208 letters ~most never before published~provides new and vivid insights into this complex, intensely private woman. Her stubborn determination to become a professional artist, her affectionate, if sometimes exasperated, respect for Degas and the other Impressionists, her candid opinions on everything from art to politics to horseflesh~all are expressed in Cassatt's own distinctive voice. Complementing the text are more than fifty illustrations of the works and the people that appear throughout the letters. Nancy Mowll Mathew's illuminating introduction to each chapter puts the letters in context, and her informative notes identify the large cast of characters, which includes just about every member of the tum~of~the~century art world. The correspondence covers the entire span of Cassatt's career, from her student days at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts through her final years in France. Letters from friends and family offer invaluable views of Cassatt from a perspective that her own letters cannot provide. Fellow student Eliza Haldeman chronicles their shared adventures in Philadelphia and Paris, and her exuberant letters overflow with vivid descriptions of nineteenth~century life as an art student, plus charming digressions on fashion, music, and menus. Emily Sartain details her later travels with Mary in Italy, and through her comments we see Cassatt's growing dissatisfaction with the art establishment, which would culminate in her alliance with the Impressionists. Above all, it is Cassatt's passionate love for painting that dominates these letters. During an involuntary exile from Europe imposed by the Franco~Prussian War, she wrote, "Oh how wild I am to get to work! My fingers fairly itch and my eyes water to see a fine picture again." She fretted endlessly to friends about the impossibility of painting in America before returning to the Continent for good in 1875. From that point on, her letters chart the course of a successfully developing career, as she searches for picturesque models, collaborates with her fellow Impressionists, and struggles to exhibit and sell her work. In later years, as failing eyesight curtailed her painting, Cassatt's interests shifted to spiritualism, politics, and women's suffrage. However, she always maintained her involvement in art, helping patrons shape their collections and nurturing young artists who sought her advice. At the end of her long life, she evaluated her accomplishments with characteristic honesty, saying, "I have not done what I wanted to, but I tried to make a good fight of it.".