Art in a Mirror: The Counterproofs of Mary Cassatt

This book reveals, for the first time, a large and previously unknown group of pastel counterproofs of Mary Cassatt. Long known for her endearing renderings of maternal imagery and for her exploration of the theme of "modern woman," Cassatt has not been properly recognised for her pioneering role in the Impressionist movement or for her often extensive experimentation in new artistic theories or mediums. Through the examination of these counterproofs a larger and more precise portrait of the artist emerges. The reader will literally enter the artistic mind of the painter, seeing the imaginative resolution she achieved for the compelling artistic problems she set for herself. These counterproofs, which are literally mirror images of her pastels, produced by taking an impression of that original on a second sheet of paper, were a novel enterprise. They belong to a whole panoply of experiments that Cassatt and her fellow artists such as Degas, Renoir, and Cezanne undertook, often in collaboration with the important dealer and publisher, Ambroise Vollard, at the end of the nineteenth and in the first decades of the twentieth century. Up until now, little more than twenty counterproofs were known or published. This group of fifty never before seen Cassatt counterproofs, from Vollard's collection, have been lost to modern students and enthusiasts of Cassatt's work. Their recent "re-discovery" enhances both the scholar's arsenal of information, including a number of previously unknown pastel compositions by the artist, while expanding current collecting opportunities. This book, produced in conjunction with an exhibition and sale at Adelson Galleries in New York, includes plates of all fifty counterproofs in full colour as well as additional colour and black and white illustrations of related works and other material pertaining to Cassatt's career. Several essays explore this rarely studied medium and its place within a fruitful period of experimentation in pastel and colour printmaking among the artists of turn-of-the-century France. It also forms an important pendant to earlier exhibition catalogues documenting Cassatt's achievement as a printmaker. Art in a Mirror: The Counterproofs of Mary Cassatt looks to a moment when art was no longer expected to merely reflect the reality of modern life but also to capture subtle states of emotion by pursuing the expressive potential of composition, light, and colour.