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View Portfolio of Images CASSATT,Mary (1844-1926)
Mary Stevenson Cassat was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1844 into a well to do family. She spent most of her formative years in Europe with her family. They returned to the States and in her adolescence, Mary opted to return to Europe to pursue her career as an artist. She took some formal instruction, but preferred to teach herself by copying the great Masters in the Louvre and other museums. Cassatt met with great success in exhibiting at the Salons, and was friendly with many of the established as well as the up and coming artists. She was invited by Degas to join the group that would later be called the “Impressionists.” Cassatt most likely learned the basics of etching during an eight-month stay in Italy. Throughout her career as a print maker she printed many of her prints by herself on her own press. Her painting aside, Cassatt was a consummate printmaker and understood the medium well. She used the color wood block prints of the Japanese masters as her inspiration, thus introducing to Western art the patterning and coloration of Eastern art. Her iconography of mothers and children is imbued with deep emotional, yet serene quality. As Adelyn D. Breeskin wrote in her catalogue raisonne of Cassatt’s prints, “Her incomparable renderings of the mother and child theme will probably always be considered her main contribution to the history of Art.” Mary Cassatt died at her beloved Chateau deBeaufresne in 1926.
 

RAFFAELLI, Jean-Francois Jean François Raffaelli was born in Paris in 1850. Prior to dedicating himself to painting, Raffaelli was an actor and played in the Lyric Theater. Soon after, he entered Gerome’s studio and made his artistic debut at the Salon in 1870.
Early in his career, Raffaelli painted genre pictures, then, in 1879 he began producing picturesque views of quaint neighborhoods in Paris. A trip to Brittany in 1876 revealed to him the effect of realistic themes depicted with restraint. He began searching for his subjects in the lives of ordinary people in Paris’ suburbs.
In 1890, with the help of Degas, Raffaelli gained acceptance into the Impressionist exhibitions. He mounted a one-man show in 1884, establishing his reputation once and for all. A gifted engraver, Raffaelli produced prints containing remarkable color. Although less talented as an illustrator, he collaborated with Forain on J.K. Huysman’s “Croquis Parisians”.
Raffaelli received Honorable Mention at the Salon in 1885, a gold medal at the Exposition Universal in 1889 and became an officer of the Legion of Honor in 1906. He was also a member of the Societe des Beaux-Arts. Raffaelli died in Paris in 1924.
 

MANET, Edouard born Jan. 23, 1832, Paris, France--died April 30, 1883, Paris
French painter and printmaker who in his own work accomplished the transition from the realism of Gustave Courbet to Impressionism. Manet broke new ground in choosing subjects from the events and appearances of his own time and in stressing the definition of painting as the arrangement of paint areas on a canvas over and above its function as representation. Exhibited in 1863 at the Salon des Refusés, his Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe ("Luncheon on the Grass") aroused the hostility of the critics and the enthusiasm of a group of young painters who later formed the nucleus of the Impressionists. His other notable works include Olympia (1863) and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882).

  PISSARRO, Camille born July 10, 1830, St. Thomas, Danish West Indies--died Nov. 13, 1903, Paris
French Impressionist painter, who endured prolonged financial hardship in keeping faith with the aims of Impressionism. Despite acute eye trouble, his later years were his most prolific. The Parisian and provincial scenes of this period include Place du Théâtre Français (1898) and Bridge at Bruges (1903).
  PISSARRO, Lucien, 1863-1944 The eldest son of the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, Lucien, was born in 1863 in Paris. Taught by his father Lucien began his career as a landscape painter, but by the 1880s got interested in woodcuts and wood engravings and in 1884-1890 worked for the printer Manzi. In 1886 he participated in the 8th Impressionist exhibition with 10 paintings and graphic works. He was one of the first to join the Neo-Impressionist movement and exhibited at the first Salon des Indépendants. In 1888 he exhibited with the avant-garde group Les Vingt in Brussels. In 1890 he moved to England and became its citizen in 1916. In Britain he established friendly contacts with the Pre-Raphaelites and plein-air painters. In 1894 he founded the Eragny Press (the name comes from a place near Dieppe), which played a significant role in the development of European book art. In 1896 Lucien Pissarro left the Societe des Indépendants, and from 1904 exhibited at the New English Art Club, and later with the Fitzroy Street Group. In 1911 he became a co-founder of the Camden Town Group and in 1919 a co-founder of the Monarro group, which propagated Impressionism in England.
The correspondence between Camille and Lucien Pissarro is an important document of the Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist movements.  Lucien Pissarro died in London in 1944.
  MONET, Claude 1840-1926 born Nov. 14, 1840, Paris, Fr.--died Dec. 5, 1926, Giverny)
French painter, initiator, leader, and unswerving advocate of the Impressionist style. He is regarded as the archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting that one of his pictures--Impression: Sunrise (Musée Marmottan, Paris; 1872)--gave the group his name.
His youth was spent in Le Havre, where he first excelled as a caricaturist but was then converted to landscape painting by his early mentor Boudin, from whom he derived his firm predilection for painting out of doors. In 1859 he studied in Paris at the Atelier Suisse and formed a friendship with Pissarro. After two years' military service in Algiers, he returned to Le Havre and met Jongkind, to whom he said he owed `the definitive education of my eye'. He then, in 1862, entered the studio of Gleyre in Paris and there met Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille, with whom he was to form the nucleus of the Impressionist group. Monet's devotion to painting out of doors is illustrated by the famous story concerning one of his most ambitious early works, Women in the Garden (Musée d'Orsay, Paris; 1866-67). The picture is about 2.5 meters high and to enable him to paint all of it outside he had a trench dug in the garden so that the canvas could be raised or lowered by pulleys to the height he required. Courbet visited him when he was working on it and said Monet would not paint even the leaves in the background unless the lighting conditions were exactly right.
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) he took refuge in England with Pissarro: he studied the work of Constable and Turner, painted the Thames and London parks, and met the dealer Durand-Ruel, who was to become one of the great champions of the Impressionists. From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine near Paris, and here were painted some of the most joyous and famous works of the Impressionist movement, not only by Monet, but by his visitors Manet, Renoir and Sisley. In 1878 he moved to Vétheuil and in 1883 he settled at Giverny, also on the Seine, but about 40 miles from Paris. After having experienced extreme poverty, Monet began to prosper. By 1890 he was successful enough to buy the house at Giverny he had previously rented and in 1892 he married his mistress, with whom he had begun an affair in 1876, three years before the death of his first wife. From 1890 he concentrated on series of pictures in which he painted the same subject at different times of the day in different lights---Haystacks or Grainstacks (1890-91) and Rouen Cathedral (1891-95) are the best known. He continued to travel widely, visiting London and Venice several times (and also Norway as a guest of Queen Christiana), but increasingly his attention was focused on the celebrated water-garden he created at Giverny, which served as the theme for the series of paintings on Water-lilies that began in 1899 and grew to dominate his work completely (in 1914 he had a special studio built in the grounds of his house so he could work on the huge canvases).
In his final years he was troubled by failing eyesight, but he painted until the end. He was enormously prolific and many major galleries have examples of his work.

 

MALHERBE, William, 1884-1951 Born in France, William Malherbe was influenced by the great Post Impressionist painters of his time, particularly Renoir and Bonnard. He is known for his still lifes, landscapes and figural paintings.
In 1939, Malherbe arrived in the United States. He lived in
New York City and on a farm in Vermont. He returned to France in 1948 and died there in 1951.
Works by William Malherbe are in the collection of the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris among other collections.
  GAUGUIN, Paul was born in Paris in 1848. Due to political unrest in France, his family made the voyage to Peru where Guaguin lived from 1851 to 1855. Upon returning to France, he worked as a stockbroker’s clerk in Paris. Inspired by an exhibition of Impressionist paintings, Gauguin began to paint as a hobby in 1871. With a solid job as a banker, he married Mette Gad in 1873 and they had five children. He began collecting works by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and other Impressionist painters, yet his own artistic endeavors were restricted to his free time on the weekends.
He attended classes at the Colarossi Academy, assisted and influenced by Cezanne and Pissarro. In 1876, one of Gauguin’s landscape paintings was accepted into the Salon d’Automne. He gave up his life as a stockbroker at the age of 35 and moved from Paris to Rouen. One year later, Gauguin separated from his wife and left his five children to live his life as a painter and printmaker.
He traveled to Panama in 1887 to work on the Panama Canal project, but was dismissed after only two weeks of labor. His antipathy developing for the Western civilization, Gauguin traveled to Martinique, settling afterwards in Pont-Aven.
In 1891, Gauguin was able to sell about 30 paintings, among his clients, Edgar Degas. With the profits from these sales, he sailed to Tahiti on the South Sea, living in Papeete for two years under primitive conditions. After two years in Tahiti, Gauguin returned to France briefly, only to sail back to the South Sea in 1894.
His admiration for primitive and exotic art led to his interest in woodcuts as an intriguing printmaking technique. Gauguin planned to publish a book called “Noa Noa”about his experiences in Tahiti. The book never came to print, but Gauguin made a set of ten color woodcuts meant as illustrations. His largest woodblock, “Manao tupapau” was created after the “Noa Noa” series. In addition, Gauguin also produced some thirty more woodcuts, which were mostly monotypes.
The last five years of his life were spent in bad health and great poverty, until his death in 1903 on the Marquesas Islands.
Back to top CEZANNE, Paul 1839-1906  Born in Aix-en-Provence, Cezanne was the son of a banker. Initially studying law, he abandoned his studies in favor of the Académie Suisse in Paris where he was to meet fellow artist Camille Pissarro. Returning briefly to his hometown in 1861 following a period of artistic disillusion, he worked as a bank clerk before returning to Paris the following year to recommence his artistic career.
Producing artwork throughout his lifetime that was often ill received, Cezanne exhibited at the very first Impressionist show in 1874 showing amongst others, 'The Modern Olympia' - a piece that was to meet with much disapproval. However, as his style developed so did its reception and by the time of the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, Cezanne had at least the high praise of one outspoken critic. Stating that he wanted 'to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the Museums' the artist's style was to develop into the early formation of Cubism, though Cezanne himself was no theorist on the matter.
The death of his father in 1886 enabled Cezanne to live the remainder of his life in comfort and relative solitude in Provence. He finally achieved his first large solo show in 1895 and for the last years of his life enjoyed a level of high profile artistic recognition that continues to grow even now.
 
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