Mary Cassatt at Work Member Preview Days

A child holding their mother's face

Mary Cassatt, Maternal Caress, 1896. Oil on canvas, 15 x 21 ¼ in. (38.1 x 54 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art, Bequest of Aaron E. Carpenter, 1970. Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art



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Book your ticket to visit the Legion of Honor and see Mary Cassatt at Work before it opens to the public. Each ticket includes entry to Mary Cassatt at Work as well as all permanent collection galleries at the Legion of Honor on the day of your visit.

Too often dismissed as a sentimental painter of mothers and children, Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was in fact a modernist pioneer. Her paintings, pastels, and prints are characterized by restless experimentation and change. Cassatt was the only American to join the French Impressionists, first exhibiting with the group at Degas’s invitation in 1879, and quickly emerged as a key member of the movement. Alongside scenes of women at the opera, visiting friends, and taking tea, Cassatt produced many images of “women’s work” — knitting and needlepoint, bathing children, and nursing infants. These images suggest parallels between the work of art making and the work of caregiving. Mary Cassatt at Work calls attention to the artist’s own processes of making — how she used her brush, etching needle, pastel stick, and even fingertips to create radical art under the cover of “feminine” subject matter.

Ticket info

  • Members at all levels are invited to attend
  • Member Preview takes place October 3–4, 9:30 am–5:15 pm, at the Legion of Honor
  • Separate reservations are required for each day
  • Present tickets at the gallery entrance

Contact info

Member Services
membership@famsf.org
415.750.3636

Sponsors

This exhibition is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Presenting Sponsors
John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn
Diane B. Wilsey
Barbara A. Wolfe

Major Support
Gretchen B. Kimball

Significant Support
Margaret & Will Hearst

Generous Support
Sandra Bessières
Jack Calhoun and Trent Norris
Edina Jennison
Christine & Pierre Lamond

Additional support is provided by Wendy W. Kwok and family, Jan and Bob Newman, and Nancy and Alan Schatzberg.

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