Special Feature - Art: The Reader by Mary Cassatt

1877
Oil on canvas
32 x 25 1/2 in. (cm. 81.3 x 64.8)
Currently part of the collection of Electra B. McDowell, New York, New York

I stumbled upon this picture on the Smithsonian website here and immediately fell in love with it. Black and white art has always been my favorite and the subject of this painting seemed warm and alive despite the monochromatic color scheme.
Mary Cassatt is known as the "painter of women and children" and a brief visit to marycassatt.org revealed how she earned that reputation. Of 400+ paintings catalogued there only one has a man in it. She has several other paintings of readers but this one is my favorite. If you enjoy impressionist art I urge you to visit the gallery on this website, especially since Cassatt was hailed as one of the best three impressionist women artists of her time.

Since very few of Cassatt's works aren't done in color I was curious to see an image of the actual painting and finally found one at the web page of the Adolph Mentzel Museum. Doesn't disappoint, does it?