Mary Cassatt Should Have Had a Blue Period

Picasso Work Sells for $52 Million

It appears the fog might have lifted over London’s economy, at least for one night. An anonymous bidder gave the winning bid of 34,761,250 pounds (roughly $52 million US), for Pablo Picasso’s “Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto.”  The seminal work, done in 1903 during the painter’s Blue Period, typifies both his classical training as well as the impending departure towards the African-influenced abstraction works we have more closely come to associate with Picasso.

In contrast, though a celebrated pioneer as both an artist and a female within the art world, were Impressionist artist Mary Cassatt the first to have a Blue Period, she would’ve easily surpassed her Spanish successor in fame and fortune. As an artist who struggled throughout her career to sell work and become established, this might’ve been the formula for success she so desperately needed. Her own posthumous sales are nothing to sneeze at, however. Cassatt’s paintings have sold for as much as $2.9 million.