Mary Cassatt,
The Child's Bath (1893). Robert A. Waller Fund. Courtesy the Art Institute of Chicago.
When Mother’s Day was proposed as a holiday in 1913, American-French artist Mary Cassatt was not particularly keen on the idea. “As a staunch supporter of women’s suffrage, she thought granting women the right to vote was a far more pressing issue than a single day celebrating mother,” explained Kimberly A. Jones, curator of the National Gallery’s 2014 exhibition “Degas/Cassatt.”
The lack of enthusiasm might come as a surprise. Cassatt and motherhood are nearly synonymous in the public imagination —in her painted world babies and young children tenderly cling to their mothers, their tangles of hands and limbs becoming like one entity.