Mary Cassatt was the first American artist to associate with the impressionists and the only American ever to exhibit with them. She also was the first to promote the impressionists in the United States and she is responsible for the appearance of many impressionist paintings in American collections. Cassatt primarily was a figure painter. From the late 1880's, she increasingly was devoted to the theme of mother and child in oil, pastel, etchings, and engravings. In 1893, she was commissioned to paint a mural for the Woman's Building of Chicago's World Columbian Exposition.