Cassatt Reconsidered

Available November 2026

Mary G. Morton, with a foreword by Lauren Elkin

A sweeping reconsideration of the artist we thought we knew—and the forces that obscured her legacy.

Fiercely ambitious and independent, Mary Cassatt defied expectations to become one of the most radical artists of the Impressionist movement, though she was—and remains—the least understood. Cassatt commanded and manipulated strains of old master and contemporary painting to express her female subjectivity through a brilliantly modern oeuvre on par with those of the most revered Impressionists. However, mishandled by the Parisian art establishment during her lifetime, and later by art historians and curators, she became known almost exclusively as a sentimentalizing painter of mothers and children.

How did this happen to the most aspiring, revolutionary female artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? In Cassatt Reconsidered, author Mary G. Morton probes this central question and more, demonstrating how Cassatt disturbed conventional ideals of femininity, childhood, and maternity, an uncompromising feat for which she paid dearly during her lifetime and in the annals of art historiography.

Vibrantly illustrated with more than 100 images, Cassatt Reconsidered rewards readers with a fuller understanding of an artist who stands apart for daring to express, on her own terms, the unique, intimate experiences of modern women.

Mary G. Morton is curator and head of the French paintings department at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. She is the coauthor of Paris 1874 (2024). In 2018, the French government awarded her the title Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters. Lauren Elkin is an acclaimed American and French writer and translator. She is the award-winning author of Art Monsters (2023) and Flâneuse (2016), among other publications.

“In Cassatt Reconsidered, Mary Morton boldly strips away preconceived notions about the artist to present her and her art from a refreshingly new perspective. The stereotype of Cassatt as a ‘painter of mothers and children’ has eclipsed the wide range of her accomplishments. Her free handling of the brush and radical spatial dynamics belie both her roots in realism and her keen psychological insights into her deceptively simple subjects.”
—June Hargrove, Professor Emerita, Department of Art History and Archaeology, University of Maryland, College Park

“In this refreshing book, Morton liberates Cassatt from a host of ill-suited generalities that have clung like ivy to her work for well over a century. The highly professional, independent woman artist she recovers recalibrates Cassatt’s aspirations and legacy.”
—Wanda M. Corn, author of Georgia O’Keeffe: Living Modern and Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor Emerita in Art History, Stanford University

“A bold and fresh new look at Mary Cassatt, who has long been marginalized in the story of French Impressionism and modernism. Mary Morton, from her insider view as the Head of French painting at the National Gallery of Art, which holds the second largest and arguably most iconic representation of Cassatt’s oeuvre, brilliantly calls foul on the continued miscues regarding this artist. Cassatt Reconsidered is an impeccably researched and immensely entertaining corrective to the oft-repeated tropes about Cassatt’s ‘sacrifice’ for her art. It’s a wonderful read that will intrigue and delight anyone interested in the market forces and strategies that helped shape the male-dominated story of Impressionism, while offering an in-depth appreciation of her quietly revolutionary career.”
—Gloria Groom, Chair and Winton Green Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, Executive Director of Initiatives in France, Chevalier, Légion d’honneur, The Art Institute of Chicago

“Cassatt Reconsidered offers a thoughtful examination of Cassatt and her place among the radical French artists of her time. Beautifully illustrated, the book sets forth both the reasons for Cassatt’s distinction as an artist, and the reasons for her long absence from the canon. Author Mary G. Morton interrogates and celebrates Cassatt’s work in this book, which restores the artist to the place in art history that she deserves—as experimental, pioneering and accomplished.”
—Roxana Robinson, author of Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life

208 pages
7 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches
105 color and 6 b/w illustrations
ISBN 979-8-88712-050-8
hardcover

Getty Publications 
Imprint: Getty Publications

2026