Gustave Caillebotte

More than any other French Impressionist, painter Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) observed and depicted the many men in his life and they feature prominently in some of his best-known works. This volume explores, for the first time, the originality of Caillebotte's paintings of men and the varied facets of his own identity.

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More than any other French Impressionist, painter Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) observed and depicted the many men in his life, including his brothers and friends, employees, and the workers and bourgeois in his Parisian neighborhood. Male subjects feature prominently in some of his best-known works, such as The Floor Scrapers, Man at His Bath, Young Man at His Window, Boating Party, and Paris Street, Rainy Day. The originality of his paintings of men are fully explored for the first time in this catalogue, published to accompany a major international exhibition co-organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum, Musee d'Orsay, and Art Institute of Chicago.

Alongside paintings, drawings, and photographs, as well as an appendix featuring maps and new biographical research that sheds light on Caillebotte's social network, this volume includes historically grounded thematic essays by curators and leading scholars. By exploring the complex and varied facets of Caillebotte's identity-as son, brother, soldier, bachelor, amateur, sportsman, and so on-these essays pose questions of identity, leaving space for ambiguous and fluid expressions of gender and masculinity-for both Caillebotte and the larger late nineteenth-century French world.

Musee d'Orsay
October 8, 2024-January 19, 2025

J. Paul Getty Museum
Getty Center
March 25-May 25, 2025

Art Institute of Chicago
TBD, 2025
Accompanying a major international loan exhibition, Gustave
Caillebotte: Painting Men offers a fascinating array of essays that explore
complex questions of masculinity and virility in the art of this still
enigmatic painter. The book features the wisdom of many seasoned scholars of
Impressionism, but it is also noteworthy for the contributions of a new
generation of authors, whose fresh eyes and new voices help bring the artist’s
world vividly to life. — George T.M. Shackelford, Deputy Director, Kimbell Art
Museum