Technical Methods Used by Mary Cassatt - Color Prints

Miss Cassatt's color prints are a masterful and unique contribution to the history of the graphic arts. Her entire graphic oeuvre reached a climax in the series of ten, first shown in her first solo exhibition held at Durand-Ruel's in Paris in 1981. The process she used for them is complicated and somewhat puzzling. We have some written descriptions written by her in letters to Samuel P. Avery, a New York collector, in January 1903 and to Mr. Winternitz, a print curator in New York in 1906, but they were written eight and eleven years after she had worked on even the last of her color prints. In both letters she abbreviated the description of the process not mentioning her use of soft ground etching, used both for drawing her outlines onto her plates and as she used it for tone in completing her designs. In the Avery letter, she wrote:

It is delightful to think that you take an interest in my work. I have sent with the set of my colored etchings all the 'states' I had. I wish I could have had more but I had to hurry on and be ready for my printer when I could get him. The printing is great work; sometimes we worked all day (eight hours) both, as hard as we could work and only printed eight or ten proofs in a day. My method is very simple. I drew an outline in drypoint, and transferred this to two other plates, making in all, three plates, never more, for each proof. Then I put on the aquatint wherever the color was to be printed; the color was painted on the plate as it was to appear on the proof. I tell you this because Mr. Lucas thought it might interest you, and if any of the etchers in New York care to try the method you can tell them how it is done. I am very anxious to know what your think of these new etchings. It amused me very much to do them although it was hard work.

In French the "gravures" refers to all intaglio or incise techniques, i.e., hard-ground etching, soft-ground etching, drypoint and engraving. Miss Cassatt translated "gravures" as just etching, without mentioning that the only etching used in her color prints is soft-ground.

In another letter three years later, she wrote:

I drew the outlines in drypoint and laid on a grain (the grain could be either aquatint or the grain of the paper as drawn with pencil over soft-ground) where color was to be applied, then color 'a la poupee.' (She applied her color with dolls of rags.) I was entirely ignorant of the method when I began, and as all the plates were colored by me, I varied sometimes the manner of applying the color. The set of ten plates was done with the intention of attempting an imitation of Japanese methods. Of course I abandoned that somewhat after the first plate and tried for more atmosphere.