Mary Stevenson Cassatt (1844 – 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She was born in Pennsylvania, but lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.
Mary Cassatt depicted the "New Woman" of the 19th century from the woman's perspective. As a successful, highly trained woman artist who never married, Cassatt—like Ellen Day Hale, Elizabeth Coffin, Elizabeth Nourse and Cecilia Beaux—personified the "New Woman". She "initiated the profound beginnings in recreating the image of the 'new' women", drawn from the influence of her intelligent and active mother, Katherine Cassatt, who believed in educating women to be knowledgeable and socially active.
Cassatt and Degas had a long period of collaboration. The two had studios close together, Cassatt at 19, rue Laval, Degas at 4, rue Frochot, less than a five-minute stroll apart, and Degas got into the habit of looking in at Cassatt's studio and offering her advice and helping her get models.