Constructing a Reputation: Achille Segard’s 1913 Biography of Mary Cassatt

Mary Cassatt: Un peintre des enfants et des mères, published in 1913, is the earliest biography of the American painter, and her sole monograph based on a series of interviews she granted its author, Achille Segard. This essay aims to present both the artist’s and her biographer’s contradictory ambitions with the monograph. The recent discovery of letters from Cassatt to Segard brings to light Cassatt’s unexpected active participation in the writing of her life story. The misunderstanding between the artist, pleading for her role within art history and her principles of independence, and the art historian, looking to establish his career through his status of witness and his integration within the impressionist milieu, led to the ultimate failure of the publication.