Degas and Cassatt: National Gallery exhibit will show how artists influenced each other

They were friends and colleagues, and they deeply admired each other's art. But an important exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, opening May 11, argues that the relationship between the older French artist Edgar Degas and the younger American artist Mary Cassatt was not that of teacher and student, or master and imitator. Rather, the influences flowed both ways, with Cassatt playing an important role in introducing Degas to American collectors.