Conversation: Mary Cassatt’s Voice—An Artist’s Correspondence
@ Art Institute of Chicago
111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603
Opening Thursday, October 1st, from 6PM - 7PM
Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) did not keep a diary or formally publish her ideas on art. Rather, it is in her letters to family, friends, and peers that Cassatt’s distinctive voice as an artist and a modern woman comes to life.
Join Annelise K. Madsen, curator of Mary Cassatt: After Impressionism, and Nancy Mowll Mathews, author of Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters and numerous other books on the artist, for a discussion on finding Cassatt’s voice in the archives. Focusing on her correspondence and other period writings, they will consider the ways in which Cassatt expressed her thoughts about art, the labor of making, and the salient concerns of the time, including women’s suffrage.
This program is made possible by the Frank J. Mooney Memorial Fund.
about the speakers
Nancy Mowll Mathews began her studies of Mary Cassatt and French and American Impressionism with her Ph.D. dissertation for the Institute of Fine Arts, N.Y.U. Of the more than fifteen books and exhibitions she has produced on this subject, the best known are Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters, Cassatt: The Color Prints and Mary Cassatt: A Life. Most recently she curated and co-wrote the catalogue for Mary Cassatt: An American Impressionist in Paris for the Jacquemart-André Museum (Paris, 2018). She is the emerita Eugénie Prendergast Senior Curator of 19th and 20th Century Art at the Williams College Museum of Art and taught in the Williams College Art Department and Graduate Program. In addition to her work on Cassatt, she is the co-author of the Prendergast catalogue raisonné, and numerous other books on Maurice and Charles Prendergast, Paul Gauguin, and the relationship between art and early film.
Annelise K. Madsen, Gilda and Henry Buchbinder Curator, Arts of the Americas, joined the Art Institute of Chicago in 2011. She has particular interest in elevating historical women artists through museum programming, collections research, acquisitions, and scholarship. Annelise co-curated and co-edited Georgia O’Keeffe: “My New Yorks” (2024), curated and authored John Singer Sargent and Chicago’s Gilded Age (2018), and has contributed to a number of other exhibitions and publications at the Art Institute. She holds a PhD in art history from Stanford University and a BA from Washington University in St. Louis.
If you have any questions about programming, please reach out to museum-programs@artic.edu.
Closed captioning will be available for this program. For questions related to accessibility accommodations, please email access@artic.edu.
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Tags: Annelise K. Madsen, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Mary Cassatt’s Voice—An Artist’s Correspondence, Nancy Mowll Mathews
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