458. INTRODUCING MISS MARY CASSATT, “PROFESSIONAL” ARTIST

Carol Tabler via Zoom

At a time when women were excluded from having equal opportunities with men, Mary Cassatt

challenged society’s status quo by thinking of herself as a professional artist. Her sexual identity never inhibited her from fraternizing, if not competing, with male artists living in Paris, then capital of the art world. Although an American expatriate, she became part of, and exhibited with, the newest, most controversial group of painters to arrive on the scene, the Impressionists, even promoting the sale of their works to buyers in the United States. She was a close friend of Edgar Degas, who inspired some of her most experimental efforts. Let us take a closer look at a selection of works in various mediums by this talented, courageous, and pioneering woman.

10:00-12 noon                                                                                                             1 Session

Thursday, May 29                                                                                                       Fee:  $30

[A Zoom link will be sent to you prior to each session, typically on the day before your class and the morning of your class.  If you have any questions or need help getting online, feel free to call us at 516-480-5733 and we’ll get right back to you with assistance.]

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Carol Tabler, noted art historian, holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU. Her dissertation focused on the French nineteenth-century artist Antoine Vollon, with whom she came into contact while writing the European section of the catalogue for the Heckscher Museum’s collection. Over the years she has organized exhibitions at the museum, served as a trustee, and is currently a member of the Collection Stewardship Committee there. Her scholarship on Vollon has led to conference presentations and publication opportunities in books, journals, and exhibition catalogues, including an e-journal article available to read on the web. In 2005 she wrote the essay for a major solo exhibition on Vollon at the Wildenstein Gallery in New York. In 2015 she donated one of Vollon’s finest drawings to the Frick Collection in New York and was invited to present a live-streamed, archived lecture on the artist, still available to view on the Frick’s website. She considers herself a Francophile, specializing in the French nineteenth century, although her broad university-level teaching experience over the years has inevitably expanded on that concentration.