The Banjo Lesson (Primary Title)
Mary Cassatt, American, 1844 - 1926 (Artist)
In The Banjo Lesson, the figures’ physical absorption—as well as their intent gaze upon the instrument’s fingerboard—epitomizes a trend in which artists aligned the banjo with female achievement and enlightenment. Anglo female banjoists appear in myriad American paintings, prints, and illustrations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Cassatt depicted the instrument on at least six occasions, suggesting its role in evolving conceptions of sexuality, autonomy, and selfhood in American women’s culture. The Banjo Lesson is based on Cassatt’s Modern Woman mural in the Woman’s Building at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, from which she at one time intended to produce a series of prints. This drypoint, however, is the only print she produced based on the mural.
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