Original subtitles

Without Durand-Ruel, we would have died of starvation, all of us Impressionists.

We owe him everything.

He was stubborn, relentless.

He risked bankruptcy 20 times in order to support us.

The critics dragged us through the mud, but it was even worse for him.

They would write, these people are crazy, but the most insane of all is a dealer who buys their work.

Claude Monet.

I don't think you can understand modern art without having a sense of how important the growth of the dealer,

the importance of the dealer was.

And that importance was first established in the context of Impressionist painting.

There was no one else to sell the Impressionists' work for them, except themselves.

And they tried to do that by having an independent exhibition.

When that didn't go very well, they mounted their own auction in 1875.

That was a dismal failure and was roundly heckled and booed by the prospective bidders in the sale room.

So what they needed was someone else to sell the pictures for them.

And miraculously, along came the right man at the right time, who was Paul Durand-Ruel.

It was the triumph of modern art over academic art.

They permanently opened my eyes and reinforced the idea that I might, perhaps in my own humble way,

be of some service to true artists, by helping to make them better understood and appreciated.

I confess I've always enjoyed the struggle, despite the sorrows and torment it caused me.

The easy trade of buying whatever is fashionable and immediately reselling it at a profit,

always following the current trend, is a business similar to selling clothing.

I could never become interested in that.

I wanted to become a missionary, or a soldier.

I found myself on a different field of battle than the one I'd imagined.

The weapons were less deadly, but the battles were every bit as relentless, harsh, and exciting.

This is a portrait of Paul Durand-Ruel in 1865.

He was 34 years old.

He was a very traditional man in his private life.

He was a devout Catholic, went to Mass every day.

And he was a royalist, which was not very common then.

And he was very strong in his opinions.

It seems strange that his taste in painting was revolutionary.

Paul Durand-Ruel's parents were Jean Durand, who was the main employee of a paper shop, who married Marie Ruel, who owned the paper shop.

They put their names together, to mean Durand-Ruel, for the shop, and they decided to extend the materials sold to artist materials.

And the artists were actually very happy to be able to exchange their pictures against material.

So little by little, artists came back, and few collectors came back to buy pictures, but also to rent them, because at the time it was much more lucrative to rent pictures for a month in order for families, or bourgeois families, to copy them and to return them after to the dealer.

Or sometimes aristocratic families, or aristocratic families, in order to impress their guests without taking the risk of buying them.

We can see some potential buyers who were from the aristocracy, or from the high bourgeoisie in France, as well as in Europe.

It's true that when Jean Durand-Ruel starts, the art picture business does not really exist.

What exists are official salons, which are salons where the artists can exhibit their works of art, but they have to be accepted by a jury, chosen by the Art Institute.

So if they are not accepted by the official salons, they have nowhere else to go to present their works of art.

So galleries are going to become a very crucial and key point for them to have a chance to sell their pictures.

And here it's very interesting how Jean Durand presents the pictures all against each other from floor to ceiling, quite like how they were exhibited in official salons.

So this book dates back to 1845. It was the Galerie Durand-Ruel, when Jean Durand wanted to create a book of most of the pictures which had passed through his gallery.

The Museum of Luxembourg was a museum of living artists, French and foreign artists, when the French government started to buy foreign paintings.

So Luxembourg was a bit of the ancestor of the Museum of Dorsey, since a part of the Museum of Dorsey comes from the Museum of Luxembourg.

So the Museum of Luxembourg was closed as a museum. We opened a museum of modern art museum.

And the Museum of Luxembourg has become a place that has built the works, but only at the time of temporary expositions.

It's a sense of a great emotion, to see the works, to see the works that we've seen in an other context completely transformed when we're stuck with other works.

and it's true that it's always very exciting.

It also requires an adaptation, an imagination and a reaction,

because we have everything in mind, we have everything done on paper,

and now everything is transformed into real paintings.

But there are many things that tell us the works,

in real, in chair, that they don't tell us on paper.

So it's actually a very exciting moment,

because finally we arrive at a result,

a result that we have many dreams.

We are going to see these works,

we have negotiated, we have discussed with our colleagues,

we have tried to convince all of our colleagues

to give us these works.

And it's true that it's also a moment where we are happy

to see that it corresponds to our expectations,

but we also hope surprises

to be able to re-batter a little bit the cards

and re-accrocher the works a little differently

from what we had expected.

What allows us to juxtapose them,

to put them together,

these are also plastic reasons,

the colors, the factors,

the factors, the touches.

There is this idea, in fact,

to both to suggest a sense,

a story,

to show an atmosphere,

which was the atmosphere of the Galeries du Grand Roel

during some expositions,

and then, independent of that,

to have a visual pleasure

and, effectively,

to have a harmony

rather than a rupture between the tables.

But what struck me in general,

about Durand Roel,

what's impressive

when we read our archives,

it's actually the determination.

It's something that we knew a little bit before,

but it's really transparent,

but it's very strong.

When we look at the activity

of the Galeries' day,

it's really someone who never stops,

who never loses hope,

never faith,

and who is really extremely determined.

We were right on the path

of all the rich customers and foreigners.

We sensed that in order to meet the tastes

and expectations of many buyers,

we also had to acquire other works,

perhaps less elevated,

but more accessible to most of our visitors.

I therefore began an entire series of visits

to artists whose work I noticed

was popular at the salons,

and started making purchases

that would subsequently become quite substantial.

I also travelled to Lyon, Bordeaux, Belgium,

Holland, England, Berlin, and Hamburg.

Unfortunately, our retail trade was too time-consuming.

All our time was taken up with customers

who wanted drawing or painting supplies,

or sought to rent a painting or drawing,

and we overlooked what should have been

the essential thing,

buying and selling paintings.

I think that the fact that art was in shops,

like a hat or some kind of nice little box

that you can offer as the gift,

it was easier to come in and buy a still life,

a landscape.

It was a fairly modest size,

so it could fit in any Parisian flat.

So I think that painting became something

that you could have in your house

and enjoy every day.

In the world of people looking at pictures at the time,

of course, the most ordinary public would go to the salon,

and would be enthralled by meticulous painting,

huge historical battles,

and deeply moving religious pictures, etc.

But also, a portion of this public was also able to be interested

in more intimate art.

It was a much smaller world,

and people susceptible to buy were much less numerous

than they could be now.

The Académie des Beaux-Arts made its selections

much like the Royal Academy, for instance,

still makes its selections now.

A few members are asked to sit on the jury,

and they sit there,

probably wined and dined quite well,

growing ever more loquacious as the day passes on.

And a parade of canvases are filed past them,

each of which must be assessed in a matter of a few seconds.

They wave their canes, they flap their hats,

they squabble with each other over what should be allowed in.

It's fairly random.

They probably recognise their friends coming through

and think, oh, we better put old Squiffy in or whatever it is.

I think it was a fairly random thing.

I mean, the whole Salon event, it was quite a bear garden.

The conventional majority

were still buying history paintings,

they were buying scenes of an uplifting nature

drawn from antiquity.

They wanted, in a sense, to elevate themselves

through what was called high art.

There was a certain amount of genre painting,

of charming scenes of more day-to-day life,

but very much overlaid with a sort of saccharine charm.

And then that was the beginning of a new attitude

to depicting nature realistically.

And that was the Barbizon School of Landscape Painting.

The Barbizon School was a group of painters

in the middle of the 19th century

who made a point of going out into nature

and painting en plein air, in the open air,

getting down what they saw directly in front of them.

They weren't yet impressionists

because the way they painted the Barbizon School

was still using local colour,

painting what they knew about trees

rather than the literal visual experience

of looking at a tree,

which is what the Impressionists brought in.

The artists of the School of 1830

continued to interest a few connoisseurs

and a group of modest collectors

who often bought mainly for speculation,

but they were still unknown

or despised by the general public.

Whatever is sanctioned by fashion

always sells more easily than works

by truly great artists,

which the public understands all the less

if they are highly personal and original.

Paul Durand-Ruel, in fact,

ne souhaitait pas être barchant de tableaux

et il avait prévu de faire une carrière militaire

et il a d'ailleurs été reçu

à l'école militaire de Saint-Cyr.

Mais son père lui a demandé de l'aider

dans la gestion de la galerie

parce que son père se sentait malade et faible.

Et Paul Durand-Ruel a commencé sa carrière

donc un peu à contre-cœur.

Jusqu'au jour, en 1855,

à la Grande Exposition Universelle de Paris,

il a vu une salle de peinture consacrée à Delacroix.

Et là, il a eu un coup de foudre.

Et il s'est dit voilà,

je sens que je peux être utile

en défendant des peintres

et en les faisant admettre par le public.

Il avait 24 ans à l'époque.

Il s'est dit,

il s'est dit,

young Durand-Ruel to it. One would have been the drama of the situation that is

being depicted. And the second thing is the enormous freedom and brevity, if you

will, with which Delacroix paints it. It is a kind of bravura performance with

the with the paintbrush, pulling these forms out of the gloom with a kind of

absolute mastery of his technique. It's often been pointed out that the Salon of

1859 was seen in France as very problematical, as being extremely boring,

and a realization was setting in that something was wrong with French

painting. It was stagnant in some way. Something had to give. And really

from that moment on you see the arrival, not that they hadn't been there before,

but coming to the foreground, an appreciation among the avant-garde for

more technical dexterity, for more adventurous compositions, for more

adventurous color. And I think it really, the origins of Impressionism in the next

few years somehow are tied in with this notion of a crisis in French painting at

the end of the 50s. I think the Impressionists were radical and

revolutionary in the way that they painted. I think that, yes, they would have been very

pleased if that art had been acceptable to the Salon, because that was the accepted

way of getting recognition. That was the accepted way of finding buyers for your pictures. And of

course, the problem for the Impressionists early on was that there was almost no one with any money who was committed to them enough to buy their work regularly. New ways of getting to the buying public had to be found by the Impressionists.

I think you have to look at the major Impressionist artists and look at what they have in common. So you have Manet, who is regarded as the father. Then you have the landscape painters, Renoir to a certain extent, Monet, Pizarro and Sisley. And then you have this incredibly important but slightly different figure also,

involved, which is Degas. And I think you can bunch the landscape painters pretty much together. They had the same feeling about painting directly in front of the image, painting with immediacy of painting the reflection of light rather than the object itself.

That was common to the landscape painters. Manet was a slightly older generation who certainly led these followers into Impressionism but was arguably never entirely Impressionist himself. And you've got Degas who wasn't strictly an Impressionist in the sense of only ever painting the reflection of light off objects.

But he was an Impressionist in that he was constantly looking for new angles on things.

The great technological innovation, which absolutely lies behind Impressionism and how it was, was the invention of synthetic colour.

I mean, before artists were sitting in their studio, they were grinding stones and mixing pigments and egg yolk and everything was coming into this extraordinarily physical process of making your materials.

Suddenly, paint came in tubes, which meant one, that you had these vivid synthetic colours they could use, and two, you could actually paint outside.

I mean, plein air painting, it's no accident that people didn't do it before. How could you have taken all your pigments out?

Suddenly, paint was in a tube. They could stick it all in their knapsacks and off they could go.

I think there's absolutely no doubt that Durand-Ruel played a major role in breaking the monopoly of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

The French Academy was an ancient institution, going for many hundreds of years, and it had a stranglehold on French culture.

It was there to control, to preserve and to propagate it.

And they wanted mythological scenes, they wanted biblical scenes, they wanted narratives, they wanted dramas, and they wanted it to be austere and classical with subdued colour.

They wanted a polished surface and a high finish, and they certainly were not up for the impression.

It's this extraordinary, garish, vivid, sketch-like quality.

I mean, it must have jarred their eyes, and they sent their senses juddering and reeling.

So yes, they hated it.

The Salon of 1866 decided to accept only two works per artist.

Manet submitted two of his finest works, the Fife Player and the tragic actor Ruvier in his role as Hamlet.

But the jury rejected them.

Renoir, like Manet, was rejected.

Monet was luckier than Manet and had both his paintings accepted.

Manet showed nothing in the Salon of 1867.

Everything he had submitted had been mercilessly rejected.

In order to show all the work he had produced up till then, he decided to imitate Corbet by exhibiting some 50 works in a gallery built, at his own expense, next to the Alma Bridge.

A few artists and several art lovers came to study them with interest.

But the press, the cartoonists and the entire public hounded their maker.

Conventional art lovers were horrified by the Impressionists.

And I think it takes a jump of imagination to see quite what a dramatic change the Impressionists represented.

I think it was the first time that new art, which was so striking, had ever been presented to the picture-loving public.

We are used to it in the present day.

We have had several generations of avant-garde art that has produced new ways of painting, new ways of creating art.

And to that extent, we are no longer shocked by the newness of it.

But I think, contemporarily in Paris, people had no experience of the new like this.

It was genuinely the first movement of new modern art.

And people were very shocked.

What happened in 1870 was important for the Impressionists.

It was because of the Franco-Prussian War that many Frenchmen took refuge in London from Paris.

Jean Ruel was one of them.

He dealt in pictures in London for a time when he was in exile, if you like.

So, too, was Monet and so, too, was Pizarro.

They both came to London and that was where Jean Ruel met up with Monet.

I swiftly packed up all of my paintings, beginning with the most valuable, in order to ship them to England.

I managed to ship everything to London before the rail line was cut.

I rented a fairly spacious gallery at 168 New Bond Street,

which, by an unfortunate coincidence, was called the German Gallery.

Since I was not well enough known in England to draw crowds to the exhibitions I was planning to organise,

I thought I had better place them under the aegis of an imaginary committee composed of Corot, Miez, Jules Dupré, Diaz, D'Aubigny and Corbet.

My own name appeared only at the end as director of the exhibition.

Naturally, I was unable to consult all these artists, but I was absolutely certain they would approve my action.

This is the great irony that Durand-Ruel discovered Impressionism in London, really.

But the real importance of the Franco-Prussian War, I think, is that Monet and Pizarro discovered Turner.

They'd seen Constable. He was actually feted in France.

Constable was neglected in England, while in France he won a gold medal in the Salon.

He was loved and people had sighted him and been excited by him.

But then suddenly they discovered Turner as well, and there's a strong argument that Turner is really the father of Impressionism in many ways.

Here was a man who looked at the weather that's so important to Impressionism, and that's what they were trying to get.

Atmospheres, mist, suns, you know, it's the vaporous weather that they love.

And here was a man who managed to capture it in bright brush strokes, to capture a sense of aura, of immediacy, of freshness, of atmosphere.

It was incredibly exciting to them to discover that.

It was in my London gallery early in 1871 that I met Monet, who introduced me, in turn, to Pizarro.

He had just painted several highly interesting pictures.

Monet's paintings cost me 300 francs, Pizarro's 200 francs.

Those are the prices I continued to pay them for years.

No one else would have been so generous, since they were forced to let them go at 100 francs,

then at 50 francs or even less, when I was no longer able to continue buying.

Shortly afterward, I began to slip a few paintings by these two artists into my exhibitions,

and managed, with difficulty, to sell a few of them.

Durand Ruel came to see me, and has taken a great part of my pictures and watercolours,

and has proposed to buy every work of art that I will create.

It brings peace of mind for some time, and the means to create important works.

Camille Pizarro.

This painting of Pizarro is really a very important painting,

which is really a turnaround.

It's the first painting that Durand Ruel will buy to the artist

when he knows the painter and his work in London.

It's a very beautiful landscape.

It's a landscape that is made to London, in plain air, at Sidonam,

in a town that is not far from the town where Pizarro lives.

And we can see, through a table like this,

the research that Pizarro mènent at this time,

a few years before the explosion of the impressionism.

We can see, through this painting,

that Pizarro has a lot of looked at the work of Corot.

So it's very important.

I think that explains the interest that Durand Ruel will bring to the impressionists.

The relations between Durand Ruel and the impressionists

have been very different in terms of the personalities of each artist.

With Pizarro, these relations started at the beginning of the 1870s,

but they will not be examples of tensions,

sometimes, between the two men.

And then we can also say that Durand Ruel,

if he supported Pizarro,

if he loved his painting,

he sometimes had some reserves,

some critiques to do on the painting of Pizarro,

and he has not always followed Pizarro

in the directions he took.

There's another way in which the Franco-Prussian War

is incredibly important in the development of Impressionism,

and that is that the defeat of the French created a certain mood in Paris.

When everyone went back after the war,

the whole landscape had changed.

Confidence had gone.

There was no longer an emperor.

Politically, everything was unstable,

and it was in that environment

that the revolutionary Impressionists,

in terms of their art,

were able to express themselves

and, if you like, gradually take off.

I mean, they were an expression of a certain amount of chaos

that existed in Paris after the Franco-Prussian War.

So you've got the chaos of the Franco-Prussian War

actually being something quite sympathetic

for a totally new art movement.

What we know about Paul Durand-Ruel

is he came from a rather elevated sector

of French bourgeois society.

He was very Catholic.

He was very royalist.

He was very family-oriented,

and so the death of his wife soon after returning to Paris,

leaving him with these five children to raise,

was a defining experience for him.

And it must have been complicated,

on one hand, to take up the new art,

to promote it,

at the same time to attempt to provide

a stable environment to a group of motherless children.

So he was negotiating some complicated things in his life

as he was taking on these art world tasks.

So this triptych,

that is, these three paintings that are together,

are paintings by Sisley, Pissarro, and Monet

at the very beginning of the 1870s,

at the time they elaborated this new language of impressionism.

These paintings are important, in my sense,

for our exhibition,

because these paintings are also paintings

that Durand-Rouëlle bought all the beginning

of his meeting with the impressionists

when he returned to France,

after his visit to London.

These paintings are paintings

that he bought in 1872 and 1873,

just after,

when they came out of the Atelier des Peintres.

I think that with Durand-Rouëlle,

the two are liés.

And if he was a great entrepreneur,

and if he revolutionized the way to do this job,

if he invented this job

of art contemporary art,

it was because he managed to

to ally a certain sense of commercial

and, above all,

a good risk,

financial,

and commercial,

with an aesthetic conviction

very strong,

very profound.

And we can't put in cause

the love that Durand-Rouëlle

brought to this painting.

He was really engaged

alongside the impressionists.

And when he installed his personal collection

in his apartment,

it was a collection

which was composed

in the majority

of impressionists.

So he also loved

to live with his works.

One of Durand-Rouëlle's great

commercial strategies

was to buy a large group of paintings,

basically buying paintings

on block from artists.

So when he first is introduced

to the impressionists

in the early 1870s,

he meets in January of 1871,

he meets Monet and Pissarro in London.

The following year

when they all are back in Paris,

he buys 36 works from Pissarro,

29 from Sicily,

29 from Monet.

And those large purchases,

obviously,

did a tremendous amount

to support the artists

and keep them going.

One of the challenges

for Durand-Rouëlle

is that the artist grew

to count on that

large group of purchases

every six months,

every year,

and he didn't always have

the financial wherewithal

to do that.

When Durand-Rouëlle believes

in an artist,

he never hesitates

to buy whatever is proposed

to him by the artist.

And he does not hesitate

to buy a huge amount

of pictures.

For example,

when his first purchase

to Monet,

he buys 23 pictures

directly from the artist.

Here in the stock book,

you can see part

of this purchase,

the stock number on the left,

the artist's name,

Manet,

the title of the pictures.

Here you have

femme au perroquet,

woman with a parrot.

You have the pfeiffer,

le fifre,

le combat naval

de l'Alabama

et du Kersarget.

And he buys them

from Manet

in January 1872

for a price

which goes for Manet

at the time

between 1,000 francs francs,

sometimes 3,000,

or 1,500,

3,000 for the Christ,

3,000 for the combat

the naval de l'Alabama.

And on the right,

it is the possible

sales he makes.

And you see that

he has not succeeded

in selling them

at that time.

You also have

the purchases he makes

to other artists,

Millet,

Corot, Millet.

And so,

this is a whole series

of drawings

because when he's

interested by an artist,

he's interested

not only by the pictures,

but also by the drawings.

Here you have

an interesting page

because you have

Degas,

Courses au Bois de Boulogne.

You have Renoir,

Vu de Paris,

Vu du Pont des Arts,

which is the very first

picture purchased

by Durand-Ruel

from Renoir.

You have Millet,

Monet,

four Monets here.

Then you have

Corot,

two, four, five Corot,

another Degas,

another Corot,

Corot, Corot,

Young King,

and Sisley,

three Sisleys,

which are also

probably three

of the first he bought

to the artist,

from the artist,

in March 1872.

And if a picture

was crossed out

and you had information

on the right page,

it meant it was sold.

The meeting

with Manet

is fascinating.

Durand-Ruel

goes in the studio

of a Belgian artist,

Alfred Stevens,

and discovers

two pictures

by Manet.

and he immediately

buys both pictures,

one of them

being the Port de Boulogne.

And he doesn't hesitate

to go and knock

on Manet's studio door

a few days later

and to buy

all the pictures

proposed by the artist

to Durand-Ruel.

And for Manet,

it's just a gift

that somebody's

finally buying his pictures.

And moreover,

Durand-Ruel asks

the artist

whether he has

other pictures elsewhere.

And he allows

the artist

a few days

or one week

in order for the artist

to bring back

in his studio

all the pictures

he's lent

or left

at other friends' house

and buys

another set of

I think 16 pictures.

And he proposed

to the artist

allow me

to buy them all.

Tell me your price.

I bought on the spot

everything I found there.

23 paintings

for 35,000 francs

agreeing to the prices

he asked.

Without pausing

to think about

the potential consequences

of my imprudent behaviour

I increasingly indulged

in purchases

disproportionate

to my means.

I had nearly 50 paintings

by Manet

on my hands

after these various purchases.

I never dreamed

of the incredible trouble

their appearance

in my gallery

would create

for my business.

These works

by a great artist

so admired today

were not only

misunderstood

but they appalled

most of my clients

far more than paintings

by Manet,

Renoir,

Sisley,

Pissarro and Degas

at which people

simply smiled at first

since they had not yet

sparked the

passionate debate

that they would

later generate.

In our allegedly

enlightened century

the greater,

more original

and personal

an artist is

the less well-known

he is.

what is so interesting

about impressionism

is that once

it was

out there

it did attract

a new sort

of picture buyer

who was not

so much

obviously drawn

from

the conventional

bourgeoisie

but was

a profile

that had

the need

for something

something

new,

something extra,

something different

and if you look

at the people

who were

buying

impressionism

earlier

and there weren't

many of them

they were

generally people

with a slightly

sort of quirky

take on life.

There were

a couple

of doctors

for instance

who were

homeopathic

doctors

which was unusual

at the time

that was

an actor

that was

a

customs

official

very lowly

paid

but with

an intense

pleasure

in

the newness

of

impressionism

these were

all guys

who were

not in the

mainstream

of normal

collecting

but who felt

very strongly

about

how much

they liked

this new art

and in a sense

they created

a prototype

a template

for

future

collectors

in

succeeding

generations

of really

avant-garde art.

Durand-Ruel started in

1873

to do a whole series

of engravings

of the pictures

that were

in the Durand-Ruel stock

in order to

try to find

potential buyers

so the potential buyers

would subscribe

to these

reviews

and receive them.

they would

buy

the first

livraisons

so they would

receive the first

livraisons

monthly

and then the second one

and then the third one

so they would receive them

as you would receive a newspaper.

And, for example, here you have a baril, a serre sur pied, you have a bon vin, so very

classic because it's interior of a convent, David, la mort de Marat, and you would have

a moulin, a monnaie, sorry, moulin en Hollande.

The year 1873 began with great promise. My firm had grown considerably and was becoming

well-known more or less everywhere, thanks to my exhibitions and stir created by my many

purchasers. I met with approval in the art world and I was considered highly creditworthy,

which unfortunately prompted me to increase my overdraft far too dangerously.

I had began publication of a catalogue, and I thought I would introduce a few etchings

after works by Manet, Degas, Monet, Bizarro, Sisley, but I never intended to shock anyone.

Even dealers who might possibly have acknowledged certain qualities criticized me for overstepping

my role. Everyone agreed that I had gone mad.

Attacked and reviled by upholders, by the most established art critics, by the entire press,

and by most of my colleagues, these new artists became a laughingstock.

The gallery was visited by countless busybodies keen to criticize.

They would say to me,

How can you praise paintings that lack any hint of quality?

It is easy to imagine the damage done to business by this change in attitude toward me,

because the convictions of most buyers of pictures and artworks are notoriously weak.

It triggered a terrible struggle that lasted over twenty years.

So at auctions I bid the prices up,

because I was determined not to let prices slide too far below the true value of things.

But this obliged me to make costly purchases that endlessly swelled my already considerable stock.

Violent altercations followed by blows of the cane broke out in the sale room.

The pictures were booed as they were presented,

and people had fun turning them upside down as they were passed from hand to hand.

The better to laugh, all the louder.

Circumstances forced me to stop buying from and helping out my new friends almost completely.

So to reach the public directly,

Degas, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pizarro, Mademoiselle Morissot,

Goulomine, Rouart, Lopic and a few others

decided to form an officially incorporated company,

the Society of Independent Artists.

They held a show of their works in large premises belonging to Nadar,

the famous photographer at 35 Boulevard de Capocine.

Pictures I bought included Impression, Sunrise, also listed in the catalogue as Impression.

The press seized upon this title and applied it to the entire group of exhibitors

as a further form of mockery.

The label, Impressionists, has stuck to them.

It seems inconceivable that a show with works of such high quality,

none of which merited disdain,

aroused such attacks and laughter from the thousands of exhibition-goers

who crowded into the rooms,

drawn by ludicrous articles in the popular press.

Although most of these visitors,

even the people who went to the salons,

had eyes in their heads,

they were unable to see and judge.

Public opinion against these dangerous innovators

was whipped up so intensely

that visitors arrived with the firm intention

of laughing

and did not even bother to look.

For example,

people today are amazed

at the anger and controversy

provoked by the Bridget Argent toy series

by Monet,

every one of which now fetches a high price.

Despite the lack of success

of their first exhibition in Nadal's premises in 1874,

they decided to test public opinion once again

in the hope of encountering less hostility.

Their second group show took place in my gallery,

which I made available at no cost.

The nickname Impressionist

had become commonplace

and exhibition-goers,

critics and journalists

used it as an expressive term,

mostly as a mark of contempt.

The press became increasingly hostile,

as can be seen in the following excerpt

from an article by Albert Wolfe in Le Figaro.

There has just been opened,

at Durand-Ruel's,

an exhibition of what is said to be painting.

The innocent passerby enters,

attracted by the banners adorning the front,

and a cruel spectacle meets his terrified gaze.

Five or six lunatics,

of whom one is a woman,

have chosen to exhibit their works.

There are people who burst into laughter

in front of these objects.

Personally, I am saddened by them.

These so-called artists

style themselves intransigents,

Impressionists.

They take up paintbrushes and canvases

in the same way that inmates of a madhouse

pick up the stones on the road

and believe they have found diamonds.

So the second Impressionist exhibition

takes place in 1876 in Paris

and in the Durand-Ruel galleries.

Paul has been asked by the artist

and also wishes to exhibit them

and exhibits a group of Impressionist pictures,

such as these three pictures,

the Cisley, Berthe Morisot,

and the Monet.

And these pictures are completely shocking

for the public of the time

who do not understand

why they're not well finished

in conventional colours.

They especially do not understand

the picture by Berthe Morisot

because you see small brush strokes.

You don't see detailed

the eyes of the woman,

the hair of the woman,

but you understand the full action

because of Berthe Morisot's genius.

When you look at this picture,

you don't think it's really finished,

but she's able to give you

all the atmosphere of the ladies

hanging the laundry.

And it's very interesting

because it gives you an idea

of the atmosphere of the action

and it's precisely what interests

the Impressionist artists.

Durand-Ruel exhibits them

and believes in their works of art.

He will meet Berthe Morisot

thanks to Manet.

Berthe Morisot will later on

marry Manet's brother

and will not need money so much,

but will be happy

to sell her pictures to Durand-Ruel.

1876 is a key moment

because we have Alfred Wolfe,

the eminent Parisian critic,

art critic,

who everyone read in the Figaro,

laying into the Impressionists again,

calling them madmen,

calling them all sorts of things.

But he's doing this

in the context of an exhibition

now being held actually

in a dealer's gallery,

in Durand-Ruel's gallery

for the first time.

So Durand-Ruel has very definitely

tacked his colours

to the Impressionist mast

and it is with the Impressionists

that he is now identifying.

Manet had shown two paintings

at the Salon of 1874,

one being a large work

depicting a woman seated

with her little girl

near the iron fence of the railway

with its smoke and steam.

I paid 5,000 francs for it in 1881.

I kept it for 20 years

without being able to find a buyer.

It is one of the most refined,

luminous and remarkable works by Manet,

visibly influenced by Manet

in his exploration of light.

It is of incalculable value.

The large banks,

alarmed by the rumours about me,

withdrew their support.

I borrowed at steep interest rates

to rescue an artist from poverty,

to prevent him from starving to death

or seeing his studio and furniture

sold by the bailiffs.

This was the case with Degas,

Manet and Sisley, among others.

I was unfortunately obliged

to let some of these paintings

go below their cost price,

but I had to sell at any event

in order to raise funds.

This torture lasted for over 10 years.

That is no way to get rich,

but it perhaps offers the satisfaction

of having fulfilled a duty,

along with fond memories

of having rescued from dire straits

the men who went on to become

the pride of French art.

I hardly need tell you

that I am expecting you

like the Messiah

to pay the damned quarterly rent.

I have two pastels ready

for instant collection.

Edgar Degas

Do not resent me

for allowing myself

to become discouraged.

I am always afraid

of annoying you

and worse,

as I have already mentioned,

that my requests for money

are a burden to you.

I certainly have confidence in you

and I am aware

of your devotion

to our cause.

I have never doubted it,

I assure you.

Claude Monet

Durandrel is probably

not the first dealer

to organise a single artist

or a monographic exhibition,

but Durandrel is the first

to really take the format

of a single artist exhibition

and to build on that

and to use it systematically.

In 1883,

at a time when he was

in great financial stresses

in France,

he decided to hold

five monographic exhibitions,

very much a collaboration

between dealer and artist.

And so he would ask the artist

to help pick works

that would be seen

in the exhibitions.

And Durandrel saw this

as a chance

to really help the artist

to build their critical reputations.

And initially,

Monet was a little disappointed

in his show.

He felt he didn't get

quite enough press.

He didn't sell as many works

as perhaps he would have liked.

But looking back on it,

he realised that

it began to distinguish him

as an individual.

And I think prior to that,

perhaps the Impressionists

had been seen as a collective

and this is where

their individual personalities

to take centre stage.

For Durandrel,

of course,

it was an opportunity

to show off

his pretty significant

stock holdings.

He was creating

the first stable,

if you like,

of modern contemporary artists.

And this had not

happened before.

Pushing on shows

devoted exclusively

to one artist,

he was focusing interest

on that artist.

And if you like,

I think it's been

rather well put,

but he was marketing temperaments.

And for the first time,

this is what dealers

started to do,

was marketing the temperament

of artists.

In the course of a long talk,

Durand-Ruel gave the same

old explanation.

Payment had to be delayed.

He told me that he had

made up his mind

to keep us going,

that he would devote himself

to this end,

that he was certain

to succeed,

that I should not

be discouraged,

etc., etc.

In short,

he said everything

one would expect him

to say,

which might prove

that he is not

going to give up

the game.

Camille Pissarro

Too late

did I realise

that exhibitions

are good for artists

whose reputations

they establish,

but not good

for sales.

Too many things

are viewed at once.

People hesitate,

consult,

listen to the advice

of exhibition-goers,

then postpone

a purchase

till later.

Furthermore,

in the large rooms

everything appeared

small,

hence the prices

set on the painting

seemed higher

than they would have

if the pictures

had been exhibited

in smaller premises.

Many a time

I noticed this effect

myself when buying.

What I thought

was inexpensive

in the seller's place

seemed costly

once hung in my galleries.

In addition,

in our trade

it is rarity,

much more than merit,

that prompts art lovers

to assign value

to the least item,

especially if it is

shrouded in mystery.

When the greatest

masterpieces are

exhibited in quantity

there is a good chance

they will not sell.

Visitors are content

to admire

and will go elsewhere

to buy items

that are much less good

at much greater cost

because they are

better displayed.

France went into

a serious economic

decline at that point.

Fewer and fewer

people were buying pictures.

Indeed, some of those

who'd bought

the Impressionists

early on

felt obliged

actually to put them

back on the market

which meant that

they actually

fetched less

because the market

was being flooded.

So, this was the moment

of John Ruel's inspiration

when he looked around

and thought

how are we going

to deal with this

and he came up

with the idea

of America.

The first time he brings

Impressionist paintings

to America

is actually in 1883

to Boston

to what was

essentially a trade show

commemorating

the 100th anniversary

of the signing

of the Treaty of Paris

and he brings 80 pictures

at that point

of which only 20%

are the Impressionists.

So, the rest of them

are much more

conventional artists

he had been selling

their work

to Americans

for a number of years

so he sort of

knew his American market

by bringing over

works like

John Lewis Brown

artists who

actually aren't

particularly well known

to us today

and then into that

he inserted

three Monet's

six Bissarro's

two Manet's

three Renoir's

and interestingly

the Boston Press

and other American press

commented that it was

actually the works

of the modern French school

i.e. the Impressionists

that were some of the

most interesting ones

in that exhibition.

A fortunate coincidence

in 1885

put me in touch

with the American Art

Association in New York.

That firm had obtained

a privilege normally

reserved for museums

mainly the duty-free

importation of pictures

and objects of art.

we agreed

that I would

immediately ship

to New York

300 of the finest

paintings I owned

by the new school.

All shipping

insurance

and advertising costs

would be met

by them.

I accepted

these terms eagerly.

I think when

John Huel arrives

in America

he is absolutely

the right man

in the right place

bringing with him

Impressionist paintings

there was a very real sense

in which Americans

took to Impressionist painting

as the new art

for a new country.

They almost prided themselves

on being more open

to this new art

than tired old Europe was.

On top of that

they were making

they were making a lot

of money.

In the last 25 years

of the 19th century

huge fortunes

were made

on the back

of the greatest stability

post-Civil War

on the back

of huge new

industrial developments.

There were

an awful lot

of rich people there

wanting to buy art

but excited

by the idea

of a new art

in a way

that perhaps

Europeans

weren't yet.

Dear Paul

there could be

no better response

than yours

informing the public

of the silent war

long waged against you

because of us.

Everyone will agree

with you.

It's not a question

of business

it's a question

of art

that you have been

defending for so long.

I myself

am very grateful

to you.

Alfred Sisley

Do what the public

press

dealers may

they will not

destroy

your true quality

your love

of the art

and defence

of living artists.

In the future

this will be

your claim

to fame

because you

were the only one.

Pierre

Auguste Renoir

I arrived in New York

with a remarkable

collection

almost entirely

compounded of works

by Manet,

Degas,

Monet,

Renoir,

Sisley

and Pissarro.

There were

360 of them.

The catalogue

and all the

advertisements

bore the simple

title of

Works in Oil

and Pastel

by the Impressionists

of Paris

with no mention

of my name.

It was a bold move

and people told me

that failure

was all the more

certain in that

all these great

arses were

particularly unknown

in America.

I was surprised

when I encountered

a welcoming audience.

People were

at first startled

by the new things

I was exhibiting

but they studied

them with interest

and a desire

to learn.

The show

drew crowds

of the curious

and unlike

what happened

in Paris

it triggered

no fuss

or stupid

comments

and sparked

no protest.

Press coverage

was unanimously

favourable

and many articles

of praise

appeared in

all the papers

in New York

and all the

large cities

in the United States.

Art lovers

and the general

public came

not to laugh

but to find out

about the notorious

paintings

that had created

such a stir

in Paris.

Paul Durand-Ruel

est allé

dans la plupart

des grandes villes

des Etats-Unis.

Je ne crois pas

qu'il soit allé

jusqu'à la côte

ouest.

Il est allé

en tout cas

jusqu'à Minneapolis

naturellement

Chicago, Boston

Washington

et d'autres

villes

importantes.

Il est certain

que Paul Durand-Ruel

n'aurait pas pu

avoir tous

les contacts

qu'il a eus

s'il n'avait pas

été possible

de voyager

d'une manière

confortable

et rapide.

La traversée

de l'Atlantique

se faisait

en une semaine

et aux Etats-Unis

le réseau

de ce main

de fer

qui s'était

énormément

développé

lui a permis

d'aller

dans toutes

les grandes

villes

pour rencontrer

les amateurs

et leur montrer

des tableaux.

To a large

degree

many Americans

didn't lay

their eyes

on an

impressionist

painting

until about

1886

and at that

point

they've heard

a tremendous

amount

there's a

great sense

of curiosity

of finding

out what

these things

really look

like

and there

still are

people in

America

that

critics

who like

to say

these paintings

were all

painted

in a lunatic

asylum

and they like

to actually

bandy about

some of the

very same

criticisms

that the

French press

had.

What

Durand-Ruel

said is that

American collectors

are more

open-minded

than many

of the

French.

I think

we're looking

at a

young country

with America

with huge

amounts of

wealth being

made and

generated

and we're

looking at

the people

making this

wealth

wanting to

make a

statement

about themselves

culturally

wanting to

establish

themselves

culturally.

There were

a number

of really

inspired

collectors

in America

who did

put together

quite

exceptional

collections.

The openness

of Americans

to Impressionism

is by now

legendary.

I think

that Mary Cassatt

played an

important role

because

every rich

insecure

American

who came

to Paris

for many

years

wanting to

buy art

would go

and see

Miss Cassatt

and invariably

she would

send them

on to

her friend

Paul Durand

Ruel.

He will

show you

good pictures

to buy.

And she

spoke

with great

authority

because she

came from

one of the

grandest

American

families,

certainly one

of the

grandest

Philadelphia

families.

Her family

ran the

biggest

corporation

in the

world at

that point,

the Pennsylvania

Railroad.

And so

when she

spoke,

you had

to listen.

Mary Cassatt,

who lived

in Paris

and because

she came

from a good

American family

was the

introducer

of quite

a lot

of American

collectors

of Impressionism,

slightly came

to, in a way,

rue the power

of Jean-Ruel

in that she

sometimes

found cheaper

Impressionist

pictures in

other places,

but found

that her

American

clients wanted

not to buy

it slightly

cheaper

elsewhere,

but to buy

it slightly

more expensive

at Jean-Ruel

because Jean-Ruel

gave an extra

cachet to the

Impressionist

painting.

I think

Jean-Ruel

found the

Americans very

refreshing.

He called

them less

ignorant,

less

closed-minded

than our

French collectors.

It is an

extraordinary

fact that

the first

Impressionist

paintings to

enter a

major museum

were in

the United

States,

in the

Metropolitan

Museum in

1889.

There were

no paintings

from the

Impressionists

yet in

public

collections

in Europe,

so that's

a measure

of how

quickly

the

Americans

latched on

to Impressionism

and understood

it.

My success

on the

other side

of the

Atlantic

had a

significant

repercussion

in France.

The same

people who

had either

not dared

to buy a

Manet,

Renoir,

or Monet,

or would

pay only a

few hundred

francs for

them,

now resolved

to pay as

much as

the Americans.

So,

little by

little,

prices increased.

So did

the number

of collectors.

There is only

one person

to whom I

owe something

and that's

Durand

Rouelle,

who was

looked upon

as mad

and on

our account

almost seized

by the

bailiffs,

Claude

Monet.

Every

institution

does

organize

their own

galleries

and the

actual

presentation

is very

unique

to that

institution.

In this

particular case

of the

Durand

Rouelle

exhibition,

we've

really worked

out the

themes

and these

moments

that we're

concentrating

on as

a group.

So,

in fact,

the galleries

as a whole

may look

the same

groups of

paintings

in Paris

as you have

in London

and you have

in Philadelphia.

The spaces

will be different

and we may

not necessarily

hang the

Degas next

to the

Monet in

the same

fashion that

Paris does.

We might

actually insert

a Pizarro

in them.

So,

when it

comes down

to the

hanging,

that's

actually

extremely

personal.

One of

the challenges

or great

fun of

something like

the Durand

Rouelle

exhibition

is that

there are

certain

paintings

that

might go

in a

couple

of

different

categories.

And so

we've

got the

discovery

of

Impressionism

in this

particular

order

at least

are largely

Durand

Rouelle's

first

purchases.

So this

board actually

is sort

of reflecting

loans that

have been

promised to

the museum.

We've been

working for

about two

years now

on seeking

loans from

various institutions.

We've had

great success,

some disappointments

along the way

of things that

can't travel

for condition

reasons or

they're promised

to another

exhibition.

But we

certainly start

out with what

we call a

working

checklist.

When we

set about

doing the

exhibition,

and this is

very much a

project that

Philadelphia has

done with

our colleagues

in Paris

and London,

we also

set out

to establish

a very clear

narrative about

Durand

Rouelle and

to pick

some key

episodes in

the history

of the

galleries.

It took

quite a while

to figure

out which

moments we

felt would

really reveal

the most

telling information

about Durand

Rouelle.

I'm wanting

to concentrate

the pictures

that have

to do

with the

1886

exhibition.

Which I

obviously

pull out

Boston,

great trophy,

the

Morisot.

I was going to

say the

cassettes.

Let's try that.

There too.

It's nice

to break up

the cassettes

as well.

I believe

Paul Durand

Rouelle's name

is in each

of the three

titles.

But of course

each venue

will focus

on slightly

different parts

of his story.

So Paris

will focus more

on the Paris

story,

the beginning.

London is

going to focus

very much

on Grafton,

Durand

Rouelle's

exhibition

in 1905.

And of course

we're focusing

on the American

stories.

So in

Philadelphia

we're calling

it Discovering

the Impressionists.

And from my

perspective

that's even

a very accurate

title because

as we've

worked with

pictures that

are very well

known, very

well established

Impressionist

works, we've

actually discovered

an extraordinary

amount of new

information about

them, about

their provenance,

about their

exhibition histories.

But an

exhibition like

this does allow

juxtapositions of

certain paintings.

I mean the

Monet Poplars,

which will have

six of those

reunited, in

Philadelphia also

makes a

statement.

Bringing them

all together really

helps you to

understand what

Monet was trying

to achieve and

that these works

while you might

see one in

London and you

might see one

in Philadelphia

and think they're

the same, when

you see them

side by side

you realize that

the artist was

doing very

different things

with each

canvas.

Now we're

seeing the last

book from

Paul Durand-Ruel's

life.

So it goes all

the way up to

1921, Paul Durand-Ruel

died in 1922.

So from

1891 onwards,

Durand-Ruel never

changed the stock

numbers and

this stock book

goes all the way

to number

11902.

That's the last

stock number

in May 1921.

That's why we can

say that more

than 11,000

pictures went

through the

Durand-Ruel gallery

during Paul Durand-Ruel's

lifetime.

The number of

admirers of the

new school

has continued to

grow from year

to year, not

only in France

but in all the

foreign countries,

mainly Germany.

The movement

will only continue

to grow despite

the prediction of

those still blinded

by routine

or the fear of

seeing their own

interests compromised.

At last, I can

rest, leaving to

others younger

than myself the

task of seeing

who among

today's new

artists are

endowed with

interesting vision.

They will not be

found on the

benches of the

Ecole des Beaux-Arts

or in academic

circles.

They will be

found among

artists who seek

inspiration only

within themselves

by contemplating

the ever-renewed

wonders of nature

and by closely

studying masterful

works by the

greatest masters

of every era.

Durand-Ruel certainly

was one of the

first to be this

medium between

the public and

the artists.

And he was not

the first because

there were several

dealers before,

but he was

probably one of

the most

sympathetic because

he was truly

interested in

the art.

I think the

real impact of

Paul Durand-Ruel

was less on

the history of

art because the

artists might have

done it for

themselves, but

then on the

history of the

art market.

He established

the art market

of the 20th

century, the

idea of

finding an

outsider, believing

in an outsider,

backing an

outsider.

That was

absolutely crucial

throughout the

20th century.

This man was

important because

he took a

very calculated

risk.

He knew what

he was doing

as an art

dealer, but

now he put

his expertise

to selling an

entirely new

kind of art.

It could have

gone very wrong.

For a while

it did go

very wrong

and he was

very close to

bankruptcy, but

he prevailed, he

brought his skill

to bear, and

over a period of

some 40 years

he took a

marginal art and

made it to the

absolute centre of

what we think and

still think is

modern art.

Well, if that

floats your

water, Lily, we're

exploring Rembrandt's

key works at the

Rijksmuseum and the

National Gallery.

All there for you

now on Catch Up

TV from Sky Arts.