Paul Durand-Ruel: The Gamble on the Impressionists at the Luxembourg Museum – Paris

October 9, 2014 through February 8, 2015

– This is the first museum exhibition ever dedicated to Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922), a major figure in the development of Impressionism, who as one of the world’s greatest art dealers during the latter half of the nineteenth century discovered, promoted and passionately supported the great Impressionist painters when practically nobody else recognized their genius. Buying and selling thousands of Impressionist paintings, including masterpieces of the genre, from the beginning of the 1870s Durand-Ruel helped bring to prominence the greatest names of the movement including Manet, Monet and Renoir while also contributing to the invention of the modern art market, establishing himself by the turn of the twentieth century as the first international dealer with galleries in Paris and New York holding the largest Impressionist collection in either private or public hands.

Through 80 documents, drawings, paintings and photographs drawn from major museums and private collections, the exhibition recounts a crucial period, from the end of the 1860s to the dawn of the 20th century, when an artistic avant-garde gained international recognition through the drive of an enterprising and inventive dealer. Among the notable works on display that once graced the walls of the Durand-Ruel Galleries are masterpieces like Delacroix’s, “The Assassination of the Bishop of Liéges” (1829), Degas’s, “Peasant Girls Bathing in the Sea at Dusk,” (1869) and Sisley’s, “View of the Saint-Mammés,” (1881) which became the first French Impressionist painting to enter a major American art museum when Durand-Ruel sold it to the Carnagie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh.

Additional highlights include Renoir’s monumental, “Dance at Bougival,” (1883) as well as three touching portraits he painted of Durand-Ruel’s five children in 1882 and two distinguished portraits he painted of Durand-Ruel himself, the first in 1872 and the second in 1910. The selection of Monet works on view is also exceptional including an expressive view of “Green Park, London,” (1870), the lyrical, “Springtime (La liseuse),” (1872), two colorful impressions of the artist’s own garden from 1873 and 1878 plus his evocative, “Les Galettes,” from 1883.