Mary Cassatt made a career painting the lives of the women around her. Her radical images showed them as intellectual, curious and engaging, which was a major shift in the way women appeared in art. Presenting her astonishing prints, pastels and paintings, this film introduces us to the often-overlooked Impressionist whose own career was as full of contradiction as the women she painted. Her artwork is some of the finest of the period. She printed, sketched and painted dozens of images of mothers and children yet she never married or had children herself.

Cassatt was a classically trained artist but chose to join a group of Parisian radicals – the Impressionists – a movement that transformed the language of art. She was as much a part of the group as Degas, Monet or Renoir. The world’s most eminent Cassatt curators and scholars reveal a riveting tale of great social and cultural change; a time when women were fighting for their rights and the language of art was completely re-written. Mary Cassatt and her modern women were at the heart of it all.