Innovative Impressions

In 1879, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and Camille Pissarro collaborated to found a periodical that would feature their prints. For much of their careers, this unlikely trio of artists used the medium of printmaking to inspire and challenge each other, and these dynamics played a crucial role in their creative process. Indeed, the intimacy of the small-scale works on paper spurred the artists to heights of daring and creativity that often exceeded even that of their paintings.

The first in-depth study to focus on Cassatt, Degas, and Pissarro together, Innovative Impressions explores this under-examined aspect of their careers. Highlighting works drawn from collections across the United States, this volume reveals how these impressionists’ collaborative engagement with printmaking helped them to develop a visual language whose expressive potential far surpassed the traditional reproductive purpose of the medium and went on to inspire the uses of color for which these artists later became famous.

About the Author

Sarah Lees is Hardman Curator of European art at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma.