Mary Cassatt, Being independent - Beaux-arts Hors-série Exposition

Exhibition: ‘Mary Cassatt: The Independent’, on display at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris (6 October 2026 – 31 January 2027).

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was American – ‘thoroughly American’, as she put it. However, she spent sixty years of her life in Europe. To mark the centenary of her death in 2026, the Musée d’Orsay is dedicating an exhibition to her – the first of this scale in France.

A leading figure in the Impressionist movement, Mary Cassatt occupies a central place in the history of late 19th-century art. The exhibition paints a new portrait of her, analysing her work through the prism of independence – a principle she upheld throughout her life as her guiding philosophy and of which she took great pride. A pupil of the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme and influenced by the aesthetics of Japanese prints, Mary Cassatt was very close to Edgard Degas and engaged in endless debates with him on technique.

Although unmarried and childless, she nevertheless made childhood her favourite subject. Her depictions of young women moving in society, enjoying themselves at the theatre – setting out to conquer the modern world – are among her most remarkable works. This provides Beaux Arts Éditions with an opportunity to explore the life of a woman who, in her own words, existed only as an artist.

Exhibition details