Caillebotte, Gustave
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Wikipedia-Article "Gustave Caillebotte"
Gustave Caillebotte (August 19, 1848 – February 21, 1894), was a French painter, patron of the impressionist art movement, and engineer.
Biography
Caillebotte inherited a sizable fortune, including the estate in Yerres, after his father's death in 1874, which funded his patronage of the arts. Also, in 1874 he attended the École des Beaux-Arts where he met impressionist painters Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, and Pierre Auguste Renoir.
His painting style appears to belong to the school of realism, although he helped organize the first impressionist exhibition and enthusiastically collected impressionist works.
Caillebotte's painting themes were catholic (as in "universal"). For example, he painted portraits and interior scenes, urban life, still lifes, and landscapes and seascapes. He often chose an overhead vantage point for his compositions and depicted elegantly dressed figures strolling with the expressionless look of sleep walkers (Boulevard Vu d'en Haut 1880). His metropolitan scenes led editor Anne Distel to title a book about him, Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist.
For many years, Caillebotte's reputation as a painter was superseded by his reputation as a supporter of the arts. However, seventy years after his death, art historians began reevaluating his artistic contributions.
Just two years before he died, he married Emilie Schlauch.
Gustave Caillebotte died in 1894 of pulmonary congestion and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.
Caillebotte's art collection
In his will, Caillebotte donated a large collection to the French government. This collection included sixty-eight paintings by various artists: Camille Pissarro (nineteen), Claude Monet (fourteen), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (ten), Alfred Sisley (nine), Edgar Degas (seven), Paul Cézanne (five), and Édouard Manet (four).
At the time of Caillebotte's death, the Impressionists were still largely condemned by the art establishment in France, which was dominated by Academic art and specifically the Académie des beaux-arts. Because of this, Caillebotte realised that the cultural treasures in his collection would likely disappear into "attics" and "provincial museums". He therefore stipulated that they must be displayed in the Luxembourg Palace (devoted to the work of living artists), and then in the Louvre.
Unfortunately, the French government would not agree to these terms. In February 1896, they finally negotiated terms with Renoir, who was the will's executor, under which they took thirty-eight of the paintings to the Luxembourg. The remaining twenty-nine paintings (one was taken by Renoir in payment for his services as executor) were offered to the French government twice more, in 1904 and 1908, and were both times refused. When the government finally attempted to claim them in 1928, the bequest was repudiated by the widow of Caillebotte's son. Most of the remaining works were purchased by Albert C. Barnes, and are now held by the Barnes Foundation of Philadelphia.
Forty of Caillebotte's own works are now held by the Musée d'Orsay. His L'Homme au balcon, boulevard Haussmann, painted in 1880, sold for more than $14.3 million in 2000.
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