Mary Cassatt: The Woman in the Country

Join SLAM and Nancy Mowll Mathews—the Eugénie Prendergast Senior Curator, emerita at Williams College Museum of Art—to explore Cassatt’s choices of models, costumes, poses and settings for the works inspired by her own country living and the messages she wanted to convey about “the Land.”

Mary Cassatt, whose family had numerous country homes over the years, acquired her own, the Château de Beaufresne, at the age of 50. In this, she matched her two brothers who built country mansions outside of Philadelphia. For Cassatt, “the country” was a lifestyle, and in her art, she created the woman who embraced it. Mathews will explore Cassatt’s choices of models, costumes, poses, and settings for the works inspired by her own country living and the messages she wanted to convey about the Land.