Picturing America - Art of the Month

Picturing America, the exciting initiative from the National Endowment for the Humanities, bring masterpieces of American art into classrooms and libraries nationwide.  Through this innovative program, students and citizens will gain a deeper appreciation of our country's history and character through the study and understanding of its art.

Great art speaks powerfully, inspires fresh thinking, and connects us to our past.  Please enjoy this Art of the Month, and visit our on-going Picturing America displays in the Josway Auditorium and in the display case opposite the circulation desk!

• For more infomation, please visit the Official Picturing America Website.
• Click here to view the full Picturing America Gallery
• Download a copy of the "Picturing America Image Catalog" (In  Adobe PDF format)

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Art of the Month - March 2010

The Boating Party

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926)

Mary Cassatt decided to become an artist at age 16, when most women of her era and social status were looking forward only to marriage.  Defying convention, she studied art in Philadelphia before heading to Europe and settling in Paris, where she remained for most of her life.  As a woman, Cassatt was not permitted to enroll in the Ecole de Beaux-Arts, the leading art academy in France, but she found private instruction and educated herself by copying paintings in the Louvre Museum.  Artise Edgar Degas invited her to join the impressionist circle, but since women were not welcome in the Paris cafes where the Impressionists often discovered their subject matter, she specialized in domestic paintings, particularly of mothers and children.

In the late 1880's, when Cassatt was well established in her career, she fell under the influence of Japanese prints and dramatically altered her own style of painting.  Abandoning the feathery brushwork, pastel colors, and insubstantial forms of Impressionism, Cassatt began to create bold, unconventional patterns of flat color and solid forms.  The Boating Party, painted on the south coast of France, exemplifies the change and is among Cassatt's most ambitious canvases.

Click on the following link for more information about Mary Cassatt.