The Radical Art of Mary Cassatt

A short documentary for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, edited to make Mary Cassatt’s process feel active rather than historical. The film reframes Cassatt as a rigorously professional painter, pastelist, and printmaker, drawing on expert interviews, archival material, paintings, letters, and a conservator’s step-by-step reconstruction of her Japanese-influenced printmaking technique.

The edit moves between argument and demonstration: biography, social context, close artwork details, and hands-on process are cut together so the viewer can understand both what Cassatt made and how deliberately she made it. The pacing keeps the film accessible while preserving the complexity of a practice built on experiment, repetition, and technical control.