Gustave Caillebotte: The Complete Story
Gustave Caillebotte was the Impressionist who painted modern Paris with a cool, almost photographic eye, and who quietly used his fortune to save the whole movement. His Paris Street, Rainy Day and his men scraping a wooden floor look nothing like soft Monet light. They are sharp, urban and strange, and for decades the world forgot he ever painted at all.
He was rich enough not to need to sell. So he bought his friends' work instead, and left it to France, which is half the reason you can see Impressionism in a museum today.
Born: Paris, 1848, into wealth
Known for: modern city scenes, daring perspective, Impressionist patronage
Died: Gennevilliers, France, 1894
A new way to see the city
Caillebotte trained as an engineer and lawyer before turning to paint, and it shows. He loved steep perspective, iron bridges, balconies and wet cobblestones, the hard machinery of the modern city the other Impressionists mostly avoided.
Paris Street, Rainy Day, with its huge umbrellas and tilting pavement, feels almost like a photograph taken a century too early. See the movement he belonged to in what is Impressionism.
The floor scrapers
In 1875 he painted three workmen on their knees stripping a parquet floor, bare backed, in a smart apartment. The official Salon rejected it as vulgar. Today The Floor Scrapers is seen as one of the first paintings to treat urban manual labour with real dignity.
He painted what he actually saw around him, rooftops, rowers, his own garden, with an honesty that looked odd next to prettier Impressionist scenes.
The man who saved Impressionism
Here is the part most people miss. Caillebotte was the movement's banker and friend. He bought paintings from Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas and Cezanne when almost nobody else would, paid Monet's rent, and funded the group exhibitions.
In his will he left dozens of these works to the French state. After a long fight, many entered the national collection, and they form the core of the Impressionist rooms now at the Musee d'Orsay. Without him, the story of modern art looks very different.
Caillebotte, your questions answered
What is Gustave Caillebotte famous for?
Modern Paris scenes like Paris Street, Rainy Day and The Floor Scrapers, and for his Impressionist collection.
Was he an Impressionist?
Yes, and also the movement's key patron. See what is en plein air.
How did he die?
Suddenly, of a stroke, in 1894, at just 45.
Why Caillebotte is back
Long dismissed as a rich amateur, Caillebotte is now recognised as one of the most original eyes of his generation, and major museums are giving him solo shows. The collector finally has the spotlight he gave everyone else.
A final detail. He was also a champion sailor and boat designer, and bred prize chrysanthemums, painting both with the same precise attention he gave the streets of Paris.