On View
Not on viewObject number1990/1.48
The Fitting
Artist
Mary Cassatt
(American, 1844-1926)
Date1891
Mediumdrypoint and aquatint
Dimensionsimage: 14 3/4 × 10 1/8 in. (37.5 × 25.7 cm)
frame: 24 × 18 1/2 × 1 1/4 in. (61 × 47 × 3.2 cm)
frame: 24 × 18 1/2 × 1 1/4 in. (61 × 47 × 3.2 cm)
Credit LineBequest of Genevieve U. Gilmore
Exhibition History
"A Century of Caring: One Hunderd Years of American Realism," KIA (May 18 - Aug. 3, 1986).
"A Gift to Kalamazoo: Selections from the Genevieve U. Gilmore Collection," KIA (Apr. 2 - May 5, 1991).
"Masterworks from the KIA Permanent Collection," Dennos Museum Center (Mar.1997 - Feb. 1998); Midland Center for the Arts (Apr. - July 1998).
"The Woman as Subject: Selections from the Permanent Collection," KIA Long Gallery (June 13 - Sept. 8, 2003).
"Borrowed Treasures: On Loan from Michigan Museums, Private Collections, and Art Centers," Crooked Tree Arts Center, Petoskey, Michigan (Oct. 2003).
"French Scenarios," KIA (May 21 - Sept. 20, 2004).
"Masterworks on Paper," KIA Long Gallery (Sept. 2005 - Jan. 2006).
"Lasting Legacy: A Collection for Kalamazoo," Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, Michigan (Sep. 6, 2014 - Jan. 4, 2015).
"Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection," March 17 - July 15, 2018, Groos GalleryLabel Text"The Fitting is an exceptional masterwork in the KIA collection. It is from a suite of ten prints featuring women in routine daily activities. Our attention might be captured initially by the presence of the standing woman who fills the image, but Cassatt is equally concerned with the squatting seamstress.
Cassatt intended this suite to be the “knock-out” that it is. She was embarking on a project that no painter-printmaker had yet attempted—editioning a related group of colored drypoint in portfolio format with each impression uniquely inked.
For the 25 impressions of The Fitting, Cassatt worked side-by-side with a master printer. The drypoint drawing and aquatint texture of the image are permanent features of the plates from which it was printed. But Cassatt varied the way the plate was inked and wiped for each impression. She imbued each print, individually, with her painterly sense of tone. In true Impressionist thinking, she demonstrated an open-minded approach to artistic interpretation. There was no single perfect color solution for the image. From its inception, for the idea at the source of the project, the sheer volume of prints produced, and the beautiful outcome, The Fitting and its nine mates are landmark achievements in the history of printmaking (written by Nancy Sojka for Passion on Paper: Masterly Prints from the KIA Collection, 2018).
