Paul Durand-Ruel and the Twilight of Impressionism

In 1865, Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922) became responsible for the gallery founded by his father, Jean. Over the years, he established himself as one of the most renowned art dealers in Paris. He dedicated much of his life to defending and promoting modern art against those who advocated academic painting.

Durand-Ruel initially supported painters such as Eugène Delacroix and Gustave Courbet, as well as the known as the ‘Barbizon School’ (Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny and Jean-François Millet, among others), before embarking shortly afterwards on his most famous enterprise: championing the Impressionist artists, including Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. In the final decade of the 19th century, Durand-Ruel undertook a new (and less well-known) adventure: supporting and promoting a new generation of painters, that of Albert André, Georges d’Espagnat, Gustave Loiseau, Maxime Maufra and Henry Moret.

Heirs to Impressionism, these artists operated within a dynamic and stimulating artistic environment, where the innovative approaches of Van Gogh and Cézanne, the neo-Impressionist experiments of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, and the synthesist explorations of Paul Gauguin coexisted. Although traditionally classified as the ‘Post-Impressionist generation,’ their work exhibits a range of tendencies, from the affinity to Impressionism of the landscape painters Moret, Maufre and Loiseau to the preference for genre scenes, portraits and decorative painting of D’Espagnat and André.

Paul Durand-Ruel and the Twilight of Impressionism seeks, firstly, to bring attention to this remarkable art dealer and patron of the arts; secondly, it aims to contextualize and highlight the work of five ‘Post-Impressionist’ artists he supported, ensuring they receive the recognition they deserve in the history of art.

Curator: Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts