Mary Cassatt

Prints and Drawings from the Artist's Studio

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by Warren Adelson, Jay E. Cantor, Susan Pinsky, Marc Rosen , and Barbara Stern Shapiro

Princeton University Press

Due/Published January 2001, 148 pages, paper

ISBN 069108887X

Documenting a new discovery, this book unveils 204 major prints and drawings by Cassatt that have been sequestered in a private collection for nearly half a century.

Sometime before 1914, as Cassatt neared the end of her career, she was coaxed into selling her "studio collection"--etchings, monotypes, color aquatints, and drawings that she had kept for sentimental or archival purposes--to the dealer Ambroise Vollard. He added a few pieces to the collection from other notable Cassatt fans, including her friend Edgar Degas. When World War I disrupted the art market, Vollard tucked his collection away and never exhibited it before his death on the eve of World War II. The entire group was acquired by a French collector, who showed only a few works to friends and selected members of the art community.

Many of the prints, which are in pristine condition, are previously unknown variants of Cassatt's work; others have never before been seen in any version. The catalogue section of the book documents the 41 color prints, 127 black-and-white prints, and 36 drawings that constitute what is now known as the studio collection. Essays by leading experts tell the story of this rare collection and explore Cassatt's virtuosity as a printmaker.