Join art historians Caroline Shields, Nikki Georgopulos, and Samantha Burton for a conversation about their research on pioneering women Impressionist painters: the American Mary Cassatt and her Canadian contemporary Helen McNicoll.  Renowned for their depictions of modern womanhood, these artists had a profound impact on the development and proliferation of Impressionism in North America.

Held in conjunction with the exhibition Cassatt–McNicoll: Impressionists Between Worlds  

Samantha Burton is Assistant Professor (Teaching) in the Department of Art History at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where she teaches undergraduate classes on modern art and visual culture in Europe and North America. Her research focuses on gender, transnational mobility, and cultural exchange in the nineteenth-century British World. She has published articles and essays in venues that include Victorian Studies, Journal of Canadian Art History, and Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide. Her biography of the artist Helen McNicoll, published by the Art Canada Institute, was released in 2017. 

Nikki Georgopulos is an art historian, curator, and educator specializing in European art of the nineteenth century. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory at the University of British Columbia. She received her PhD in Art History & Criticism from Stony Brook University in 2020, and has held positions at the National Gallery of Art, the Morgan Library & Museum, the International Foundation for Art Research, and the Corning Museum of Glass. She is currently at work on a book project on representations of mirrors and reflections in nineteenth-century French art. 

Caroline Shields is Curator, European Art at the AGO, where she has curated the exhibitions Impressionism in the Age of Industry: Monet, Pissarro and more (2018), Steam: Impressionist Painting Across the Atlantic (2022) and Cassatt—McNicoll: Impressionists Between Worlds (2023). Prior to joining the AGO in 2017, Caroline Shields held various curatorial roles at the National Gallery of Art, Washington; the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. She holds a Doctorate in art history from the University of Maryland with a specialization in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century European art.