Simone in a Blue Bonnet

Mary Cassatt 
American, 1844-1926

Simone in a Blue Bonnet (No.1) 
Oil on canvas, ca. 1903

Born in Pittsburgh to a wealthy family, Mary Cassatt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia before leaving for France in 1865.  As a woman, she was barred from pursuing her education at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, so she studied individually under several established French painters, among them Edgar Degas, who became extraordinarily influential in the development of her work.  She focused on the intimate spaces of women's lives, depicting scenes both of domestic and public life.  Children were also a major source of artistic inspiration for Cassatt.  This work is one of nearly twenty portraits of Simone, a young girl who lived near her home in the Oise Valley, located fifty miles north of Paris.
She was the only American to exhibit with the Impressionists in Paris.

Bequest of Mrs. Henry A Everett, 1938.20
viewed in Balboa Park at the San Diego Museum of Art, California