First Person Singular by Wendy Braitman

filed in Single Women's Hall of Fame

The Single Ways of Mary Cassatt

May 22, 2009 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

As part of my ongoing search for candidates for this site’s Single Women’s Hall of Fame, and in honor of her birthday, I’m exploring the life of the 19th century American painter, Mary Cassatt.

I came across a 1999 article, “Cassatt’s Children,” by one of my favorite New Yorker writers, Adam Gopnik. It’s interesting and witty, as usual with Gopnik, and he admires Cassatt, but I was struck by some of his spinsterisms. Describing her remarkable ability to paint mothers and children, he writes of a “maiden-aunt gift for empathy.” As an old women, Cassatt became “crusty,” and when people made pilgrimages to see her, they might have “their heads bitten off.”

I’m going to spend more time with Cassatt, to see if this rings true, and get back to you.

(Painting: Woman Bathing, 1890)

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