Gustave Caillebotte

His most well known work is Paris Street; Rainy Day, known for qualities such as its mise-en-scène presentation. The Art Institute of Chicago acquired the painting in 1964 and his work drew more attention in the 1970s. Although Caillebotte has long been regarded for his philanthropy and support as a patron and promoter of Impressionism, he did not have an international retrospective of his work until 1994, 100 years after his death. In 2022, when France successfully attained possession of Boating Party, known for its close-up action perspective, through a National treasure of France declaration process, the country asserted the work's cultural significance and prominence with a celebrated display, followed by a national tour of the work, and then an exhibition of Caillebotte's work that toured internationally.

Gustave Caillebotte studied at Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Paris Law Faculty and Beaux-Arts de Paris. Training under Jean-Léon Gérôme and Léon Bonnat is recorded. The recorded working language is French. The field of work recorded is painting. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are portrait, animal, still life and genre. Places of work recorded in the authority are Gennevilliers, Honfleur and Paris. Works named in the authority record are Paris Street; Rainy Day, Les raboteurs de parquet and Vue de toits. Work by Gustave Caillebotte is recorded in the collections of Minneapolis Institute of Art, Art Institute of Chicago, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, National Gallery of Victoria and Musée Léon-Dierx.

• Name — Gustave Caillebotte • Born — 19 August 1848 • Birthplace — Paris, France • Died — 21 February 1894 • Place of death — Gennevilliers, France • Resting Place — Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris • Field — Painting • Training — École des Beaux-Arts • Movement — Realism, Impressionism • Notable Works — * Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877) • Les raboteurs de parquet (1875) • Young Man at His Window (1876) • Le Pont de l'Europe (1876) • Boating Party (1877–78) • Illustration — Portrait de l'artiste (Self-portrait). c. 1892. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

• Illustration — Gustave Caillebotte (right) and his brother, Martial Gustave Caillebotte was born on 19 August 1848 to an upper-class Parisian family living in the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis. His father, Martial Caillebotte (1799–1874), inherited the family's military textile business and was also a judge at the Tribunal de commerce de la Seine. Caillebotte's father was twice widowed before marrying Caillebotte's mother, Céleste Daufresne (1819–1878), who had two more sons after Gustave: René (1851–1876) and Martial (1853–1910). Caillebotte earned a law degree in 1868 and a license to practice law in 1870. He also was an engineer. Shortly after his education, he was drafted to fight in the Franco-Prussian War and served from July 1870 to March 1871 in the Garde Nationale Mobile de la Seine.

Caillebotte began painting during his war service. After the war, Caillebotte began visiting the studio of the painter Léon Bonnat, where he started to study painting seriously. He then developed an accomplished style in a relatively short time and had his first studio in his parents' home. In 1873, Caillebotte entered the École des Beaux-Arts, but apparently did not spend much time there. In some of his early works he used mother and brothers as models. His artist's studio was built in the family home at his father's direction. He inherited his father's fortune upon the latter's death in 1874 and the surviving sons divided the family fortune after their mother's death in 1878. Gustave and his brother subsequently sold the Yerres estate and moved into an apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann in Paris. Around 1874, Caillebotte had met and befriended several artists working outside the Académie des Beaux-Arts, including Edgar Degas and Giuseppe de Nittis, and attended (but did not participate in) the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874. The "Impressionists"—also called the "Independents", "Intransigents", and "Intentionalists"—had broken away from the academic painters showing in the annual Salons. Caillebotte made his debut in the Second Impressionist Exhibition in 1876 showing eight paintings, including Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Scrapers, 1875), his earliest masterpiece. Its subject, the depiction of labourers preparing a wooden floor (thought to have been that of the artist's own studio), was considered "vulgar" by some critics and is probably why the Salon of 1875 rejected it. At the time, the art establishment deemed only rustic peasants or farmers acceptable subjects from the working class. By the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877, Caillebotte had assumed the leadership role for the events by securing rental space, selecting artists and works, and hanging works. Managing the desires and expectations of other aspiring artists was not without cost, however, and his involvement eventually declined. In the end, he presented works in five of the eight impressionist exhibitions.

• Illustration — Les raboteurs de parquet (1875), a controversial realist subject, Musée d'Orsay In common with his precursors Jean-François Millet and Gustave Courbet, as well his contemporary Degas, Caillebotte aimed to paint reality as he saw it, hoping to reduce the inherent theatricality of painting. Perhaps because of his close relationship with so many of his peers, his style and technique vary considerably among his works, as if "borrowing" and experimenting but not really sticking to any one style. At times, he seems very much in the Degas camp of rich-colored realism (especially his interior scenes); at other times, he shares the Impressionist commitment to "optical truth" and employs an impressionistic pastel-softness and loose brush strokes most similar to Renoir and Pissarro, although with a less vibrant palette. The tilted ground common to these paintings is characteristic of Caillebotte's work, which may have been strongly influenced by Japanese prints and the new technology of photography, although evidence of his use of photography is lacking. Cropping and "zooming-in", techniques that commonly are found in Caillebotte's oeuvre, may also be the result of his interest in photography, but may just as likely be derived from his intense interest in perspective effects. A great number of Caillebotte's works also employ a very high vantage point, including View of Rooftops (Snow) (Vue de toits (Effet de neige), 1878), Boulevard Seen from Above (Boulevard vu d'en haut, 1880), and A Traffic Island (Un refuge, boulevard Haussmann, 1880).

• Illustration — Young Man at His Window (1876), J. Paul Getty Museum Caillebotte painted many domestic and familial scenes, interiors, and portraits. Many of his paintings depict members of his family: Young Man at His Window (Jeune Homme à la fenêtre, 1876) shows René in the home on rue de Miromesnil; The Orange Trees (Les Orangers, 1878), depicts Martial Jr. and his cousin Zoé in the garden of the family property at Yerres; and Portraits in the Country (Portraits à la campagne, 1875) includes Caillebotte's mother along with his aunt, cousin, and a family friend. There are scenes of dining, card playing, piano playing, reading, and sewing, all executed in an intimate, unobtrusive manner that portrays the quiet ritual of upper-class indoor life. His country scenes at Yerres focus on pleasure boating on the leisurely stream as well as fishing and swimming, and domestic scenes around his country home. He often used a soft impressionistic technique reminiscent of Renoir to convey the tranquil nature of the countryside, in sharp contrast to the flatter, smoother strokes of his urban paintings. In Oarsman in a Top Hat (also known as Boating Party, 1877), he effectively manages the perspective of a passenger in the back of a rowboat facing his rowing companion and the stream ahead in a manner much more realistic and involving than Manet's Boating (1874). Boating Party was submitted by Caillebotte to the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879. He submitted a total of 35 paintings and pastels to the 1879 exhibition. Boating Party was considered one of the best of the set that also included Vue de toits. This set, which is focused on "water sports, boating and riverside leisure", is described as the most important exhibition of his works as a living artist. • Illustration — Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (1877), Art Institute of Chicago Caillebotte is best known for his paintings of urban Paris, such as The Europe Bridge (Le Pont de l'Europe, 1876), and Paris Street; Rainy Day (Rue de Paris  temps de pluie, also known as La Place de l'Europe, temps de pluie, 1877). The latter is almost unique among his works for its particularly flat colors and photo-realistic effect, which give the painting its distinctive and modern look, almost akin to American Realists such as Edward Hopper. Many of his urban paintings were quite controversial due to their exaggerated, plunging perspective. In Man on a Balcony (1880), he invites the viewer to share the balcony with his subject and join in observing the scene of the city reaching into the distance, again by using unusual perspective. Showing little allegiance to any one style, many of Caillebotte's other urban paintings produced in the same period, such as The Place Saint-Augustin (1877), are considerably more impressionistic. Caillebotte's still life paintings focus primarily on food, some at table ready to be eaten and some ready to be purchased, as in a series of paintings he made of meat at a butcher shop. He also produced some floral still-life paintings, particularly in the 1890s. Rounding out his subject matter, he painted a few nudes, including Homme au bain (1884) and Nude on a Couch (1882), which, although provocative in its realism, is ambivalent in its mood—neither overtly erotic nor suggestive of mythology themes common to many nude paintings of women during that era.

• Illustration — Le jardin du Petit Gennevilliers en hiver (1894), private collection In 1881, Caillebotte acquired a property at Petit-Gennevilliers, on the banks of the Seine near Argenteuil. His brother Martial married in 1887, and Gustave moved to the Petit-Gennevilliers property permanently in 1888. Caillebotte's property had a shipyard for him to design his own yachts. The move also put him in proximity to regattas and he won several races with his boat, Roastbeef. He ceased showing his work at age 34 and devoted himself to gardening and to building and racing yachts, and he spent much time with his brother, Martial, and his friend Auguste Renoir. Renoir often came to stay at Petit-Gennevilliers, and engaged in far-ranging discussions on art, politics, literature, and philosophy. Caillebotte was a model for Renoir's 1881 painting, Luncheon of the Boating Party. Although he never married, Caillebotte appears to have had a serious relationship with Charlotte Berthier, a woman eleven years his junior and of the lower class, to whom he left a sizeable annuity. • Illustration — Gustave Caillebotte, The Seine at Argenteuil, c. 1892, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, gift of George Heard Hamilton and Polly W Hamilton. While Caillebotte was known for his urban and domestic scenes, he also painted many rural scenes of the area around his home in the years before his death. His work had shifted to en plein air works of landscape painting, especially river scenes. Caillebotte is most well-known for smoothly executing depictions of the surroundings of Paris with realism, in the 1870s and 1880s. His painting career slowed dramatically in the early 1890s when he stopped working on large canvases. Caillebotte died of pulmonary congestion while working in his garden at Petit-Gennevilliers in 1894 at age 45. He was interred at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. For many years, and partly because he never had to sell his work to support himself, Caillebotte's reputation as a painter was overshadowed by his recognition as a supporter of the arts. Seventy years after his death, however, art historians began reevaluating his artistic contributions. His striking use of varying perspective sets him apart from his peers who may have otherwise surpassed him. His art was largely forgotten until the 1950s when his relatives began to sell the family collection. In 1964, the Art Institute of Chicago acquired Paris Street; Rainy Day, spurring American interest in him. By the 1970s, his works were being exhibited again and critically reassessed. Even as late as the 1970s Caillebotte's place in the history of art was tenuous. At the 100th anniversary of his death in 1994, a major retrospective of his work traveled to Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris (16 September 1994 – 9 January 1995), Art Institute of Chicago (18 February – 28 May 1995), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (10 June – September 10, 1995). It marked the first comprehensive (117 works, including 89 paintings) international retrospective exhibition of his work. The National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.) and the Kimbell Art Museum (Fort Worth, Texas) organized a major retrospective titled "Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter's Eye" of Caillebotte's painting for exhibition in 2015–2016.

• Illustration — Caillebotte in his greenhouse (February 1892), Petit Gennevilliers Caillebotte's sizable allowance, along with the parental inheritance he received, allowed him to paint without the pressure to sell his work. It also allowed him to help fund Impressionist exhibitions and support his fellow artists and friends (Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissarro, among others) by purchasing their works and, at least in the case of Monet, paying the rent for their studios. Caillebotte bought his first Monet in 1875 and was especially helpful to that artist's career and financial survival. He was precise in his sponsorship; notably absent are works by Georges Seurat and Paul Gauguin, or any of the Symbolists. In 1890, he played a major role in assisting Claude Monet to organize a public subscription and persuade the French state to purchase Édouard Manet's Olympia (1863).

In 2022, France acquired Boating Party and unveiled it in 2023. In 2024, the French Ministry of Culture organized a national celebration of the acquisition to coincide with the 150th anniversary of impressionism and the 130th anniversary of Caillebotte's death. The celebration began with a special display of the work in the Musée d'Orsay's impressionism gallery, followed by a national tour of the work, and then its inclusion in a major Caillebotte exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay alongside other Caillebotte masterpieces. Boating Party toured the country being presented by Rima Abdul Malak at Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon (9 September 2023 – 11 December 2023), displayed at Musée des beaux-arts de Marseille (15 December 2023 – 17 March 2024) and then exhibited at Fine Arts Museum of Nantes (March 23, 2024 to June 23, 2024). The Nantes exhibition coincided with both the Musée d'Orsay's 150th anniversary impressionism exhibition (26 March – 14 July 2024) and its simultaneous celebration of loaning 180 works to 30 different museums throughout France. This was the first time that a National Treasure had been put on a national tour like this. In 2024 the Musée d'Orsay hosted an exhibition examining how Gustave Caillebotte depicted men in unconventional ways, hinting at his possible homosexuality. The exhibition's introductory texts highlight how Caillebotte portrayed men in domestic, often intimate settings typically reserved for women in the 19th century. His male subjects are shown with striking realism in everyday activities—bathing, rowing, lounging, and even defecating. A curator remarked on the radical nature of his work: "His subject matter is very radical during the time, because men were not supposed to stare at men, and he's staring at men". During his career, 100 of his paintings depicted only men, while just 32 depicted only women, an emphasis that was unique among his French contemporaries. Most of his male subjects are from high society. However, this bias of the Orsay exhibition has been disputed by some art critics in French newspapers, such as by Harry Bellet in Le Monde. The tour was titled as "Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men" at Musée d'Orsay (8 October 2024 – 19 January 2025) and its subsequent appearance at J. Paul Getty Museum (25 February – 25 May 2025). The show traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago (29 June – 5 October 2025) as "Gustave Caillebotte: Painting His World". The only change in the exhibition was that Caillebotte's pastels were only included in Paris because of their fragility. The subsequent legs of the exhibition included Young Man Playing the Piano (1876), on loan from Tokyo's Artizon Museum.

In addition, Caillebotte used his wealth to fund hobbies for which he was quite passionate, including stamp collecting, orchid growing, yacht building, and even textile design. The women in his paintings Madame Boissière Knitting (1877) and Portrait of Madame Caillebotte (1877) may be working on patterns created by Caillebotte. After his death, he was inscribed in the Roll of Distinguished Philatelists and the collection he amassed together with his brother Martial is now in the British Library.

His Man on a Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann (Homme au balcon, boulevard Haussmann, 1880), sold for more than US$14.3 million ($ million in) in 2000. In 2011, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired Homme au bain for $17 million ($ million in), marking the museum's second Caillebotte. In February 2011, a record for his work was established at $18 million ($ million in). In 2018, Marie-Jeanne Daurelle, the great-granddaughter of Caillebotte's butler, Jean Daurelle, bequeathed 3 paintings (2 of Daurelle) and 2 pastels (depicting her grandfather, Camille, as a child) to the Musée d'Orsay. She had not realized that the paintings were valuable until the 1994 retrospective of Caillebotte's work. The 2019 sale of Rising Road (Chemin montant, 1881) pushed the record for the highest price achieved for a Caillebotte work to $22 million ($ million in) or €19.9 (€ million in). Later that year, another Caillebotte work Richard Gallo et son chien Dick, au Petit-Gennevilliers (1884) sold for $19.7 ($ million in) or $20.8 ($ million in), depending on the source. In 2021, Young Man at His Window (Jeune homme à sa fenêtre, a National treasure of France) was sold by the estate of Edwin L. Cox at auction at Christie's New York to the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles for $53 million ($ million in) or €48.9 million (€ million in), marking the Getty's first Caillebotte work. Boating Party (Partie de bateau, also a National treasure of France) had been retained by Caillebotte's descendants until a donation by LVMH made it possible for the Musée d'Orsay to acquire it for $47million ($ million in) or €43 million (€ million in) in 2022. Musée d'Orsay claims to have the largest collection of impressionist works in the world. However, its 13 previous works by Caillebotte did not include any works from the part of his career where he worked on water related themes. Boating Party was described as the most important treasure acquired by the state in the history of the National Treasure program.

• Illustration — Nude Lying on a Couch (1873) Promised gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art • Illustration — Les jardiniers (1875) Private collection • Illustration — L'Yerres, effet de pluie (1875) Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana • Illustration — Portraits à la campagne (1876) Musée Baron Gérard, Bayeux • Illustration — Le Pont de l'Europe (1876) Petit Palais (Genève) • Illustration — Skiffs (Périssoires) (1877) Milwaukee Art Museum • Illustration — Baigneurs (1878) Private collection • Illustration — Les orangers (1878) Museum of Fine Arts, Houston • Illustration — Les Périssoires (1878) Museum of Fine Arts of Rennes • Illustration — Rue Halévy, From the 6th Floor (1878), Museum Barberini, Potsdam • Illustration — Vue de toits (Effet de neige) (1878) Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Illustration — Boulevard des Italiens (1880) Private collection • Illustration — L'homme au balcon, Boulevard Haussmann (1880) • Illustration — Un balcon (1880) Private collection • Illustration — Dans un café (1880) Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen • Illustration — Intérieur (1880) Private collection • Illustration — Fruits sur un étalage (1882) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston • Illustration — Portrait d'Henri Cordier (1883) Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Illustration — Homme portant une blouse (1884) Private collection • Illustration — Villas à Trouville (1884) Cleveland Museum of Art • Illustration — Homme au bain (1884) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston • Illustration — The Yellow Fields at Gennevilliers (1884) Lent to the Wallraf–Richartz Museum, Cologne • Illustration — The plain of Gennevilliers, yellow fields (1884) National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne • Illustration — Voiliers à Argenteuil (1888) Musée d'Orsay, Paris • Illustration — La Plaine de Gennevilliers (1888) Private collection • Illustration — Nasturces (1892) Private collection