The Dealer Who Saved Impressionism

Writing this blog today was at the bottom of my to do list.

After reading Michael Fitzgerald’s rather slanted review today in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting, a blockbuster exhibit currently on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this blog post went right to the top of the list.

Michael, I totally disagree with your conclusion that this show “offers many visual pleasures but rarely does justice to its topic”. Furthermore, I think this misses the whole point of the show – and wish the WSJ would publish a counter-point to this slanted review (says Beverly, the indignant art historian).

While I agree with much of what is written, the conclusion overlooks the plethora of information in the wall charts and each wall tag, adding a whole new dimension to our experience of the show. Most of this information is new to us. We walk away thinking about the business aspect of 19th century Impressionism, and comparing it to birth of art movements in today’s world.

The goal of this exhibit was not to do a survey of Impressionism, or “tell this crucial story of modern art“, but to show how one 19th century art dealer committed himself to a fledgling art movement, enabling it to survive.

We learn from this show that Paul Durand-Ruel had the eye – and what an eye! In today’s poker vernacular, we would say Durand-Ruel was a visionary who had the courage of his convictions and guts to go all in.

As for why the curators decided to pick these particular paintings or why such “tiny samples” cannot tell this story, it’s almost irrelevant because the curators are not trying to tell the whole story. Some works are included, I suspect, for their provenance. The point is that Durand-Ruel kept Impressionism afloat at his own financial peril by taking out loans to purchase thousands of paintings to support the artists, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy.

Durand-Ruel was surprisingly modern in his thinking, developing innovative marketing strategies and tactics that are used routinely today in the gallery world by Gagosian, David Zwirner, among others. While being a visual feast for the eyes (especially Monet’s mouthwatering Gallettes) and serving up many major serial Impressionist works such as Monet’s Poplars and Renoir’s Dancers, this show looked at Impressionism from the perspective of a gallerist, providing an intriguing glimpse of the financial inner workings of the gallery world. (Unfortunately photos weren’t allowed of the paintings or the charts, so thanks to whoever took these.)

Durand-Ruel established himself as the forerunner of modern day gallery owners by establishing outposts in various geographic locations (Paris, London, multiple venues in the US), cornering the market by purchasing thousands of Impressionist paintings (think 1,000 Monet’s and 1,500 Renoirs alone), manipulating auction prices, wheeling and dealing with discounts, and more. And I learned that pop-up galleries are nothing new, having originated over more than a century ago.

He singlehandedly supported the Impressionists on a day-to-day basis (no consignment agreements for him!), introduced his artists in solo and group shows, and producing catalogs that could be passed along, generating word-of-mouth. He even promoted his shows with the press, commissioned essays, using strategies akin to contemporary PR.  All of this sounds like what I learned in Marketing 101 at Northwestern – and yet it all happened in the 19th century.

One of the highlights for me was the reproduction of a Durand-Ruel gallery ledger showing the prices he paid for the the paintings and sculptures, his selling prices, and therefore revealing his profits – which were gigantic on some of the name artists of the day such as Corot, Millet and Rousseau, and funded his Impressionism investment. The ledger essential functions as a defacto list of all the unsold inventory – which represented a huge investment.

Fitzgerald says we don’t know much about Durand-Ruel, but I beg to differ. We know he was a private man, a conservative and a Catholic, who raised his kids alone after his wife died, and put a priority on his family. He was a creative thinker who committed himself vehemently to those artists whose work he believed in, putting his conservative politics aside. Durand-Ruel remained fiercely loyal to his artists throughout their lives – even when a few started using Theo van Gogh (brother of Vincent van Gogh) as a secondary dealer (which would have put an arrow through a lesser man’s heart). And he ventured out into the American art market, where he found the financial success that bailed him out and saved Impressionism.

After Jay and I finished viewing this impressive show, we had a few minutes to wander around and participate in a veritable treasure hunt for paintings in the permanent collection that were handled by Durand-Ruel. Almost an extension of the show, here’s one of many, many works marked with a special labels at the bottoms saying, “This object was sold by the Durand-Ruel Gallery”.

The fascinating part was finding out that large number of 19th century works in the Philadelphia Art Museum came through Durand-Ruel. At one point, we were in a gallery with a whole wall of these special tags!

I highly recommend seeing Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting without hesitation. There’s something here for everyone.

So get in your car and go before the show closes on September 13th. Be ready for a treat on multiple levels.