Portraits of Artists' Mothers

Mary Cassatt, Reading the Figaro (Portrait of the Artist's Mother), 1878

Katherine Kelson Johnston

Louisine Havermeyer wrote in her memoirs Sixteen to Sixty: Memoirs of a Collector (Ursus Press, 1993): "Anyone who had the privilege of knowing Mary Cassatt's mother would know at once that it was from her and her alone that [Mary] inherited her ability."

Here are other artists' mothers who have gave us their talents through their children:

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Grey and Black, No. 1  

(The Artist's Mother), 1871

Anna McNeill

Paul Cézanne, Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1867

Anne Elisabeth Honorine Aubert

Berthe Morisot, Portrait of the Artist's Mother and Sister, 1869-70

 Marie-Joséphine-Cornélie Thomas

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1896

Marie Picasso y Lopez

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Portrait of the Artist's Mother, 1897

Anna Tanner

Arshile Gorky, The Artist and His Mother, 1926-36

Gorky's mother died of starvation in 1919 

The portrait is based on a 1912 photo

Happy Mother's Day,

Beth New York

aka Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, Ph.D.

Director, New York Arts Exchange

www.nyarts-exchange.com