Gustave Caillebotte, Painting men - Exhibition notes

This is the first look at the Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte's (1848-1894) predilection for male figures and portraits, which dominate his work. The great modernity of Caillebotte's masterpieces lies as much in his original way of depicting his contemporaries as in his daring framing and perspective effects. Responding to a "realist" ambition, he introduced new figures into painting, such as the urban worker, the city dweller on the balcony, the sportsman or the naked man at his toilet. This vision was also deeply personal and autobiographical, as Caillebotte only took his subjects from his closest environment, posing his brothers, his friends from the Cercle de la voile de Paris, the workers who worked for his family and the middle-class people he came across in the streets around his home. Against the backdrop of the triumph of military virility, bourgeois patriarchy and republican fraternity, these images question gender norms and social categories, and bear witness to the artist's questioning of his own identity.

Exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay from 8 October 2024 to 19 January 2025

French

64 pages

Coédition Gallimard / musée d'Orsay

Author Paul Perrin