American Women Artists

Mary Cassatt and Georgia O’Keeffe

CHILD IN A RED HAT, REINE LEFABVRE, MARGOT AND MOTHER & CHILD, THE BOATING PARTY and THE BATH 

by Mary Cassatt (cass át) (1844 – 1926)

Mary Cassatt was born in 1844 in Pittsburgh, PA.  As a youngster, Cassatt was very interested in art.  Her wealthy father approved of her wish to study art at the Philadelphia Academy of Art, but a few years later when she told her father of her desire to study art in Europe and to make art her life’s work, he was not happy.  In those days it was not socially acceptable to be a professional artist.  But her father at last gave his permission.

Cassatt studied in Spain, Italy, France and Holland.  Finally, after years of travel-study she settled in Paris, where she began to enter her artwork in competition.  She won many awards and rejoiced that her paintings were accepted.

After eight years of painting to suit the judges, she became dissatisfied.  She wanted to paint life as it was lived daily.  She was interested in people and the way they felt toward one another.  She decided to join a radical new group of artists called “Impressionists”

1.   Do you remember what Impressionism is?  (A revolutionary movement that aimed at reproducing the impression which the eye and mind gather, rather than representing the actual fact.)

2.      Who are some artists you have learned about that were Impressionists? (Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet)

Edgar Degas was one of the group of Impressionists who was very important to Cassatt.  His art and ideas had a considerable influence on her own work and he invited Cassatt to exhibit with the Impressionists. 

Cassatt was not only considered an Impressionist artist; she was also an avid supporter of the group and of art in general.  She regularly purchased paintings for her and her family, and her advice to American patrons of art helped to build some of the most terrific art collections in the world.

3.   Do you think Cassatt was a typical 19^th century woman?  (It was very unusual to be an independent and non-conforming woman in the 19^th century. In the US, women could not vote, own property, attend college or work in most professions.)

Show examples of Cassatt’s work.

4.   1. What subject has the artist chosen to paint?

Cassatt is most famous for her paintings of women doing every day activities such as bathing a child, writing letters or drinking tea.

2. What makes this an Impressionism work? (Loose brushwork, unfinished areas of the background)

3.Why do you think Cassatt chose to have the mother looking away in the painting “Mother and Child”?  (It makes us feel like intruders on an intimate scene of mother and child.)

5.   How does she show love between them? (the gentle hug, the soft colors, the contented look of the child)

6. What techniques have Cassatt used to convey emotion and intimacy?  Even though there are mostly cool colors in this painting, why do we sense a warm feeling?  (Soft edges, softened colors)

6.    Why do you think Cassatt is successful in communicating her attitude about the bond between mother and child? 

7.      How do you think the painting would change if:

…The mother and child were facing us?

…It was painted with smaller brushes?

…It was painted with brighter colors and a vivid background?

…We saw the entire figures in the painting?  

POPPY, MORNING GLORY, JIMSON WEED, AND SUNFLOWER, NEW MEXICO and book  

by Georgia O’Keeffe (1887 – 1986)

Georgia O’Keeffe was born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin and grew up on a large dairy farm.  As a child she received art lessons at home, and her abilities were quickly recognized and encouraged by teachers.  By the time she graduated from high school in 1905, O’Keeffe had decided to become an artist.  Education for women was a family tradition, and her mother was supportive of her desire to study art.

O’Keeffe attended the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Student’s League in New York, and Columbia Teacher’s College in New York.  She was an art teacher before she became a full time artist.

Rejecting the imitative realism that she was taught she began to strip that away and began to paint as she felt.  “I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me…shapes and ideas so near to me….so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down…”

As early as the mid-1920s O’Keeffe began to paint large-scale depictions of flowers as if seen close up.  These are among her best known pictures and she has become recognized as one of America’s most important and successful artists.

She is also known for her still lifes, the New York at Night series, southwestern landscapes and stark bones found in the desert.  Her financial success proved to her that an artist could make a living with a paintbrush.

1.How do you think the encouragement of her mother and teachers helped her?  (It gave her the confidence to express herself through art.)

Show the print “Poppy”

1.      What is unusual about this painting?  (extreme close-up, detailed)

2.      What is the first thing you notice when you look at it?

3.      Why do you think O’Keeffe painted flowers like this? (“Most people in the city rush around so,             they have no time to look at a flower.  I want them to see it whether they want to or not.”)

4.      What colors do you see?

5.      Are they primarily warm or cool colors? (warm)

6.      What are warm colors? (reds, yellows, oranges) Cool colors? (blues, greens, purples)

Show the smaller prints.

7.   Are the colors in the smaller prints warm or cool? (Jimson weed – cool, Sunflower – cool and warm)  

8.   How do they make you feel? (Poppy – alive, excited; Jimson – relaxed, mellow)

Art Activity:

See attachments – Abstract Flowers inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe and Flowers Galore

There are examples of “Abstract Flowers” with cool and warm colors in the 7^th and 8^th grade drawer.

If the boys balk at drawing flowers, have them draw something else from nature, like a tree branch or a plant.  Be sure to tell them to use either cool or warm colors.