Gustave Caillebotte

Gustave Caillebotte: Impressionist Paintings from Paris to the Sea presents the artist’s well-known Parisian cityscapes alongside his painted scenes of outdoor life on the coast of Normandy and in the rural villages of Yerres and Petit Gennevilliers, where he and his family maintained estates. The exhibition will explore for the first time how these paintings express Caillebotte’s passion for subjects in which water plays a central role—as an enigmatic magical element reflecting its surroundings; as an essential atmospheric ingredient; and as a scene for sporting activities. Caillebotte approached his motifs with the trained eye and hand of an accomplished rower, yachtsman, and engineer.

While The Floor Scrapers (1875), The Pont de l’Europe (sketch; 1876), and House Painters (1877) reveal the artist’s fascination with Parisian subject matter-from the streets of the French capital to the labors of a growing urban working class-Skiffs on the Yerres (1877) demonstrates the artist’s interest in light, water, and reflection (principal ingredients of Impressionism), as well as the physical activity and camaraderie of the boaters. Regattas at Villers (1880) captures the atmosphere Caillebotte experienced as a painter and as an avid competitive sailor. Two pa