Nancy Mowll Mathews

I worked for the print curator of a museum of modern art in Texas for a while. I catalogued, re-matted and re-framed a large part of the museum's very fine and extensive print collection, which included very fine impressions of "the Ten," the ten color dry-point/aquatints that she produced in 1890-91 (I think). They are wonderful objects to see up close, unframed, and matting and framing them was one of the highlights of my too-brief time as a print cur's assistant. I don't collect catalogues raisonne, I just purchased this book because I've always been so fond of "the Ten," and because even in reproduction, you can spend a lot of time gazing at them and appreciating Cassatt's mastery, and that of her printer, M. LeRoy.… (meer)

Mary Cassatt, b. 1844. An excellent read about a fascinating personality. Cassatt struggled to take time away from her creative work in a way that a man wouldn't have been expected to do--like take care of her aging parents. If Cassatt was sometimes crabby about that, who could blame her? Good notes, good bibliography, well-written.

"My poor painting is sadly interrupted, I have no time now for anything & the constant anxiety takes all the heart out of me; my only hope is that this change will set Mother right for a time."

"Don't mind about clothes or anything," she writes to a friend, "for the people here are little more than barbarians."

I really liked this woman and found the biog both interesting and readable. Mathews has also edited a selection of Cassatt's correspondence: Cassatt and Her Circle, Selected Letters.… (meer)