Art Collage JANG: ARTIST OF THE WEEK: 42. Gustave Caillebotte, ACJ Art Academy

Saturday, August 15, 2020

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: 42. Gustave Caillebotte, ACJ Art Academy

Name: Gustave Caillebotte

Born: August 19, 1848; Paris, France

Died: February 21, 1894; Gennevilliers, France

Nationality: French

Art Movement: Realism, Impressionism

Field: Painting

Influenced by: Alfred Sisley

Friends/Co-workers: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet

Gustave Caillebotte was a French painter born on August 19, 1848 and died on February 21, 1894. He was an Impressionist painter and their patron who painted in a more realistic way than many other Impressionist painters. Caillebotte was famous for his early interest in photography as an art form.

He was born from an upper-class family in Paris. His father was the heir of the family’s military textile business and also a judge at the Seine department's Tribunal de commerce. From 1860, his family began spending summers in Yerres, about 20 km South of Paris, and it is believed that it was around this time that Caillebotte began to paint.

Gustave Caillebotte

He obtained a law degree in 1868, a license to practice law in 1870, and was also an engineer. Shortly after completing his studies, he was drafted in the Franco-Prussian war and served in the military from July 1870 to March 1871.

Caillebotte's painting career slowed dramatically in the early 1890s when he stopped painting large canvases. He died of pulmonary congestion in 1894 at the age of 45 while working in his garden at Petit-Gennevilliers and was buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Since Caillebotte didn't have to sell his work to make a living, his reputation as a painter was overshadowed by his recognition as a patron of the artists. But 70 years after his death, art historians began to re-evaluate his artistic contributions. His excellent use of varying perspective is particularly admirable and sets him apart from his colleagues. His art was almost forgotten until the 1950s, when his descendants began selling the family collection.

In 1964, The Art Institute of Chicago purchased his work, "Paris Street; Rainy Day" which aroused American interest in him. By the 1970s, his works were being exhibited again and reevaluated.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., USA and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas organized a retrospective exhibition of Caillebotte's painting from 2015 to 2016 to pursue further the rediscovery of his work.

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