Ambroise Vollard: Mary Cassatt

 

"Mother and Child" by Mary Cassatt

"Mary Cassatt! At the time of my first attempts when I used to ask myself anxiously what the morrow would be like, how often did she get me providentially out of a difficulty! It was with a sort of frenzy that generous Mary Cassatt laboured for the success of her comrades: Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Sisley and the rest. But what indifference where her own painting was concerned! What an aversion from pushing her work in public.

One day at an exhibition, they were fighting for and against the Impressionists. 'But,' said someone, speaking to Mary Cassatt without knowing who she was, 'you are forgetting a foreign painter that Degas ranks very high.' 'Who is that?' she asked in astonishment. 'Mary Cassatt.' Without false modesty, quite naturally, she exclaimed, 'Oh, nonsense!' 'She is jealous,' murmured the other, turning away.

Mary Cassatt owned a place at Mesnil-Baufrêne where she used to spend the summer. It was there that she died in 1926. The entire village followed the funeral procession. None but old Mathilde, her devoted maid, and a few intimates, knew the whole extent of her generosity, for Mary Cassatt accompanied her acts of beneficence by a dry, almost distant gesture, as though she felt shy of doing good.

In the cemetery, after the last prayers, the pastor according to Protestant custom, distributed to those present the roses and carnations strewn upon the coffin, that they might scatter them over the grave. Looking at this carpet of brilliant flowers, I fancied Mary Cassatt running to fetch a canvas and brushes."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Recollections of a Picture Dealer" by Ambroise Vollard.)