Portraits Around the World

An American from Philadelphia, Mary Cassatt lived most of her life in Paris, painting and exhibiting as part of the French Impressionist circle. She was a friend and follower of Degas, and like him, painted portraits primarily of family and friends in familiar settings. The influence of Japanese prints was important in her later work and is clearly apparent in the flat, simplified shapes of this portrait of her niece Ellen Mary.

While abstract painting was the dominant style in New York in the mid-twentieth century, Alice Neel concentrated on portraits, usually of friends or art-world personalities. Neel’s portraits are probing and often unflattering, as she exaggerates certain features to convey her sitters’ personalities and their relationship to each other. The direct stare and tense posture of art historian Linda Nochlin seated with her young daughter Daisy are typical of the almost confrontational quality of Neel’s work.

In these portraits, the two artists confront the task of painting a very young child, of depicting at rest someone normally in constant motion. Cassatt’s over-dressed toddler sits patiently awaiting and outing—or does she? The demeanor of Neel’s Daisy is openly animated yet contained, as she, too, is forced to sit unwillingly. Each artist has subtly captured the normal energy and willfulness of childhood beneath a superficially complaint exterior.

How has each artist used colors and shapes to organize the composition of the painting? (Look particularly at the clothes.)

Compare the faces, poses, and clothing o the children in the two paintings. Do you get a sense of their individual personalities? If so, how?

Which child would you rather baby-sit for? Why?

(left) (right)