1998 32c Four Centuries of American Art: Mary Cassatt

U.S. #3236o
32¢ Mary Cassatt
Four Centuries of American Art

Issue Date: August 27, 1998
City: Santa Clara, CA
Quantity: 4,000,000
Printed By: Sennett Security Products
Printing Method: Photogravure
Perforations: 10.2
Color: Multicolored

Birth Of Mary Cassatt

Artist Mary Stevenson Cassatt was born on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny City (present-day Pittsburgh), Pennsylvania.

Cassatt was one of seven children born into an upper-middle-class family.  They moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and later Philadelphia, where Cassatt first attended school at the age of six. 

Cassatt’s family encouraged world travel, so she spent five years in Europe, visiting London, Paris, and Berlin, among other places.  She had some of her first art and music lessons there, which set her on the course to become an artist.  While her family didn’t like the idea of her becoming an artist, she attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts when she was 15.

Cassatt remained at the school until 1865.  She was unhappy with her education there – the pace was too slow for her and she found the male students to be patronizing.  Although her father opposed it, Cassatt moved to Paris in 1866.  At the time, women were unable to attend the École des Beaux-Arts, so Cassatt received private lessons from Jean-Léon Gérôme.  She also spent a good deal of time at the Louvre copying the famous paintings there, as was often done by women in Paris at the time.

Cassatt eventually started studying under Charles Joshua Chaplin and Thomas Couture.  In 1868, the jury at the Paris Salon selected her painting A Mandoline Player.  She was one of the first two women to exhibit her work at the Salon.

Click here to view Cassatt’s complete works.