EXHIBITION GUIDE · PARIS
Mary Cassatt: Being Independent
A centenary retrospective at the Musée d’Orsay
PLAN YOUR VISIT
At a glance
- Dates
- Oct 6, 2026 — Jan 31, 2027
- Venue
- Musée d’Orsay, Paris
- Hours
- Tue, Wed, Fri–Sun 9:30am–6pm · Thu 9:30am–9:45pm
- Admission
- Online €16 · On site €14 · Check official concessions
- Closed
- Every Monday · May 1 · December 25
Details checked by IEUM on 2026-10-12. Please confirm current information before visiting.
IEUM VIEWING NOTE
Follow Cassatt from the hands that care for a child to women moving through the modern city, then to her colour prints and lost mural. Independence, here, is both a way of working and a way of living.
WHY IT MATTERS
More than “mother and child”
The Musée d’Orsay marks the centenary of Mary Cassatt’s death with a major retrospective bringing together nearly eighty paintings, pastels and prints. It is the first exhibition of this scale devoted to Cassatt by a French national museum.
Rather than leaving her inside the familiar label of “the painter of mothers and children,” the exhibition follows Cassatt as a professional artist, an adviser to collectors and a supporter of women’s suffrage. Rarely seen works from European and American collections appear alongside letters and other archival material.
HOW TO LOOK
Three things to notice
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01
Women in motion
Begin with what the women are doing. They attend the theatre, drive a carriage, receive visitors, read and care for children. Follow gloved hands, the direction of a body and a gaze extending beyond the frame. Cassatt’s independence often appears as the freedom to choose one’s time and movement.
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02
A changing language of colour
Move from quick Impressionist brushwork to the firmness of pastel, then to high viewpoints, cropped forms and the flat patterns Cassatt studied in Japanese prints. Her colour prints were built through several plates, revealing an artist who never settled into a single method.
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03
Care as work — and choice
Cassatt looked closely at the physical work of care without treating women’s lives as a small domestic subject. She also sold her art, advised collectors and supported a suffrage exhibition. Intimacy and independence do not cancel each other here; they grow within the same life.
ONE WORK TO CARRY WITH YOU
The Child’s Bath
Before looking at faces, find the four hands. One arm supports the child, one hand washes a foot and the child’s own hands help balance the two bodies. The basin, striped dress and patterned floor turn an ordinary act of care into a carefully constructed field of movement.
Read IEUM’s Korean artwork guide →OFFICIAL SOURCES
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Image rightsIEUM does not reproduce exhibition images on this page because reuse rights have not been confirmed. Artwork and installation views can be seen on the official Musée d’Orsay page.