Introduction

The “Les Amis de Mary Cassatt” Association was created in 2002 by a group of local admirers who wished to honor and perpetuate her memory. Today, the Association, with the support of the municipality, aims to revive the memory of this American artist who chose the Oise area of France to practice her art and who was part of the French Impressionist Movement. She also had a vital role in the promotion of other Impressionist artists such as Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley to wealthy American collectors and patrons.

This role of art intermediary between her artist friends; the important French art dealers of the time, Durand-Ruel and Vollard; and her wealthy American contacts such as Andrew Carnegie, Henry Clay Frick, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Pierpont Morgan, John Davison Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, John Howard Whittemore, Potter Palmer, and Harry and Louisine Havemeyer was admirably executed. She was highly successful in achieving her aim of spreading European art throughout American museums as, over the years, all the great museums in the United States have been beneficiaries of legacies and donations from these great art collectors.

In keeping with Mary Cassatt’s passion to promote French impressionists in the US, the Association hopes to organize exhibitions featuring contemporary French and American artists. Other events are envisaged such as musical and dance performances, art lectures and writers’ workshops.
A further aim of the “Les Amis de Mary Cassatt” Association, association in cooperation with the tourist offices of the contiguous departments of Oise, Val d’Oise and Eure, is to create an Impressionist Tourist Trail linking the villages where other famous artists, friends and contemporaries of Mary Cassatt resided; Vincent Van Gogh in Auvers-sur-Oise, Camille Pissarro in Eragny-sur Epte and Pontoise, Claude Monet in Giverny and Henry Le Sidaner in Gerberoy.

Auvers-sur-Oise

Eglise Notre Dame de l’Assomption

The Notre Dame de l’Assomption church was painted by Van Gogh; see also the Auberge Ravoux and Doctor Gachet’s house.

Eglise Notre Dame de l’Assomption

Eragny-sur Epte

L'atelier et le jardin de Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro’s workshop and garden were listed as historical monuments in 1998 but they are privately owned and not yet open to the public.

Giverny

La fondation Claude Monet

Claude Monet lived in Giverny for 43 years from 1883 to 1926. The Monet Foundation makes his house, Le Clos Normand and the water gardens available to the public.

La fondation Claude Monet
Le musée des Impressionnismes

Each season the Museum of Impressionisms presents two temporary exhibitions.

Pontoise

Le musée Camille Pissarro

The Camille Pissarro Museum has a permanent collection of works of pre-Impressionists to post-Impressionist landscape artists, 1860 to 1910. Paintings by Pissarro, Signac, Manzana Pissarro, Guillaumin, Hayet, Piette and Daubigny are displayed in rotation.

Le musée Tavet-Delacour

The Tavet-Delacour Museum is housed in a beautiful townhouse dating from the end of the 15th century, once home to the Grand Curate of Pontoise. It houses the town’s historical collection, modern and contemporary art, and works of 19th century landscape artists.

Gerberoy

Le musée Camille Pissarro

Gerberoy is one of France’s prettiest villages. It is located in the heart of Picardy at the center of a triangle formed by Beauvais, Rouen and Amiens. It is here that the artist Henri Le Sidaner built his studio and created three monochrome gardens, the white garden, the rose garden with his summer workshop and the yellow and blue garden. They are open to the public.