The story of Impressionism has long been dominated by men—Monet, Degas, Renoir—leaving the movement’s few female artists as footnotes to the canon. But “Mary Cassatt / Berthe Morisot: Allies in Impressionism,” opening May 24 at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, reframes that narrative by spotlighting two of the era’s most accomplished—and most misrepresented—painters.
As two of only four women exhibited with the Impressionists, American-born Cassatt and French Morisot have long been cast as competitors by their contemporary art critics and art historians, most of whom were male. But recent scholarship, much of it led by women and grounded in the artists’ personal correspondence, reveals a different story: one of creative collaboration and mutual support.
“The scholarship surrounding these two has only within the last decade begun to be assessed and compiled by female scholars who have noticed the discrepancies in how their relationship has been portrayed versus how it all truly played out,” says Ann Cannon, Curator of American Art at Fenimore, and the exhibition’s curator. “You have these two strong female artists working together in what is essentially a small circle of mostly male artists. They must’ve leaned on each other and fostered each other through the shared experiences only they would have understood as women.”
The show gathers 43 works from major collections—including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the National Gallery of Art—to trace how each artist rendered the interior lives of women, experimented with new media like printmaking, and subtly challenged the limitations placed on them by 19th-century society.
The exhibition also highlights how Morisot’s artistic potential was cut short with her death in 1895, right when her name was gaining momentum. “If she had lived as long as Cassatt, she would have been just as well known,” Cannon notes. “She was a self-editor. If a painting didn’t speak to her, she would destroy it. Which today makes her pieces so rare when they do surface at auctions or in galleries.”
“Mary Cassatt / Berthe Morisot: Allies in Impressionism” will be on view May 24 through September 1 at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown. For more information, visit Fenimoreartmuseum.org.
