Among Friends: Mary Cassatt and Her Circle

Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was the only American to exhibit with the French Impressionists, a radical group of artists in Paris who rejected the conventions of the Academic Salon. She remarked that when the artist Edgar Degas invited her to join the group, "At last, I could work with absolute independence." Cassatt prized her artistic freedom and is renowned today for her pioneering vision. Her treatment of everyday domestic life as a legitimate subject for art, determination to work as a professional woman artist, and daring experimentations across media were groundbreaking for their time.

Yet she did not work in isolation. Among Friends: Mary Cassatt and Her Circle explores the relationships at the heart of Cassatt’s life and work: much of her art portrays keenly observed interpersonal dynamics, she collaborated closely with fellow artists, and she helped introduce modern French art to audiences in the United States through her friendships with American collectors.

This exhibition draws on collection strengths of the New Britain Museum of American Art, including the 1891 pastel A Caress, alongside loans from regional collaborators. Works on paper depicting intimate connection, shown together with prints by her friends Degas and Berthe Morisot, illuminate the centrality of personal relationships to Cassatt's practice. Adjacent galleries present work by American artists in her broader circle who likewise traveled between the United States and Europe, and who contributed to the flourishing of Impressionism on this side of the Atlantic—including here in Connecticut.