Which Impressionist painter was born in the United States?

Mary Cassatt was the Impressionist painter born in the United States.

Cassatt was born Mary Stevenson Cassatt on May 22, 1844, in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, an area now part of Pittsburgh. Although she spent most of her adult life in France, she remained an American artist and is widely recognized as the only American officially associated with the Impressionist group. Her career connected American collectors with the revolutionary art being made in France.

Cassatt initially pursued academic training and exhibited through the official Salon system. After encountering Edgar Degas’s work, she moved toward the Impressionists’ brighter color, modern subjects, and freer handling. Degas invited her to exhibit with the group, and she participated in several of their later exhibitions, beginning with the 1879 show.

Her paintings often depict women and children in intimate domestic settings, especially mothers caring for or spending time with their children. Cassatt also produced influential prints, using techniques shaped partly by her interest in Japanese woodblock art. Berthe Morisot and Marie Bracquemond were fellow female Impressionists, but both were French, making Cassatt the canonical American-born answer.