Who Was Mary Cassatt and Why Was She So Important?

One of the notable distinctions of the first exhibition of the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. (later known as the Impressionists), held 150 years ago this year, was that women artists were welcome. The Impressionist exhibitions gave women—largely excluded from official contexts—the opportunity to show their work to a public audience, and the American artist Mary Cassatt took full advantage, participating in four out of eight of them. This year Cassatt&rsq