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5 Reasons to See Caillebotte By 5 July

Judith F. Dolkart on July 2, 2009

Almost every day that the Caillebotte show has been open to the public, I have been in the galleries—to ponder the works, to give tours, and to talk to our fantastic guards about visitor response. (The guards can tell you how I plague them.) While the installation of an exhibition offers incomparable, exhilarating joy as you work with the exhibition designer and the art handlers to create a distinctive visual narrative, the time spent in the galleries during the run of the show follows shortly thereafter on the fun scale. (Loan paperwork predictably comes in at the bottom of the scale.) Interactions with our visitors—from Caillebotte initiates to die-hard aficionados—are great treats because they prompt fresh observations.

So, with time running out for these face-to-face discussions—the show closes on 5 July!—I urge you to come out here and to let us all know what you see—enter your observations here on this blog or on our digital comment book in the exhibition.



Gustave Caillebotte @ Brooklyn Museum via pixonomy on Flickr.

Here are five reasons to come to see this exhibition:

1. A Brooklyn Exclusive!—Brooklyn is the final stop on this tour and the only American venue for this exhibition. Works by Gustave Caillebotte are rare in American museums—even for collections that are otherwise very rich in Impressionism. We have two at Brooklyn, and this makes us very lucky as I soon discovered when I went looking for more to add to our presentation. Most of the paintings in this exhibition come from private collections, so you will likely not see another significant gathering of works by Caillebotte in New York again very soon.

2. And a Journey to France—As Caillebotte moves from Paris to the French countryside and back to Paris, follow his move from early works executed in the studio to those painted on the spot before the motif. Caillebotte paints a France in flux: the newly reconstructed French capital with its broad avenues and regularized façades—the Paris we know today; coastlines developed with getaway homes for the well-to-do; and suburbs caught between leisure pursuits and a burgeoning heavy industry.

3. Art and Design—An avid competitive yachtsman, Caillebotte revolutionized sailboat design, and we are lucky to have six half-models of his designs in the exhibition. Listen to Tom Jackson, Senior Editor of WoodenBoat, eloquently describe the particularities of Caillebotte’s innovations on our cell phone guide. As scholars have noted, Caillebotte’s engagement with yachting prompted complete conceptions as he designed, built, sailed, and, finally, painted his many boats as they cut through the currents of the Seine or quietly bobbed at his dock. In this way, Caillebotte was like Claude Monet who planted elaborate gardens at Giverny and then painted them.

4. Daring Subject Matters—With The Floor Scrapers—one of two paintings devoted to this subject—Caillebotte established his reputation as a painter to watch when he made his debut at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876. Many conservative writers disliked such scenes of urban labor, but critics allied with the avant-garde applauded the subject drawn from daily life. And Caillebotte’s Factories at Argenteuil (1888) marries a distinctively modern subject with bold paint handling—listen to Paul Tucker’s cell phone commentary on this one, he says it far better than I can.

5. Painter and Patron—Caillebotte played a critical role in the early days of Impressionism as he financially supported his fellow artists and helped to organize their landmark exhibitions. As one of the most significant early collectors of Impressionism, Caillebotte owned now-iconic works by his fellow painters. When he died prematurely in 1894, his collection of paintings by his Impressionist peers passed to the French state and now forms one of the most important core collections at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. You can catch a glimpse of The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir in Caillebotte’s Self-Portrait at the Easel (1879). Notably, Caillebotte paints Renoir’s work in a very distinctive manner, but I will let you discover this on your own!



Caillebotte's Ladies Wear Hats via Trish Mayo on Flickr.

And please do let us know what you observe! Can’t wait to see what you see!

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The Caillebotte Merchandise Challenge

Sallie Stutz on March 6, 2009

As the head of merchandising at the Brooklyn Museum, it is my responsibility, along with my staff, to keep the Museum shop stocked with a wide range of items that relate to our permanent collections and the special exhibitions that we present here. I recently returned from attending the New York Gift Show, which consumes the entire Javits Center plus 3 Hudson River Piers featuring over 3000 gift product booths. If you walk every aisle, it can be over 8 miles long! Every year, I attend the show with my staff for several long days in search of the latest new products, hottest designs and trends, and most importantly merchandise that represents the upcoming exhibitions. The most recent trade show challenge for us? Caillebotte.

"Who" asked the vendors?? "Gustave Caillebotte"…"Who is he?? Can you spell his name??" So, my immediate reply was to say "you know this artist—he was an Impressionist painter who worked in the late 19th century along with Renoir, Monet, and Sisley." Usually I still did not get any recognition from my suppliers, so I would continue… "You know his work—his most well known painting is the “Paris Street, Rainy Day” painting from the Art Institute of Chicago—you know the one with the man in the tall top hat with the umbrella"....and VOILA, …I finally would see some recognition. So, having accomplished vendor identification of the artist, now we are on to whether there was any product availability that would suit our needs.



Since most of the paintings in this upcoming exhibition are from a private collection, there is very little existing product with such images available and this means we will have to create custom products. As is the case with this particular example, we often seek out suppliers who can customize product with art images from an exhibition and these custom products might include posters, jewelry, sculptures, t-shirts, mugst, stationery products, etc. etc.

In addition to the custom assortment, we always search for related products that convey more knowledge or tell a story about the artist and the mileu in which he works. In the case of Caillebotte, we had a lot to consider. From reading the catalog and interviewing the curator, Judith Dolkart, we learned not only that he was a highly skilled Impressionist painter, but he also was an avid top notch sailor who innovated and designed racing boats as well as an avid gardener. All three of these facets of his life led us to look for related products and vendors who carried nautical books, gifts, boat models, floral and garden supplies. The aim is to set the ambiance in our Museum Shop by featuring the artist’s color palette, his period in art, his subject matter.

In our search for specially related product, I received a phone call introducing a new potential product referred to me from our Education Department. It turned out that a local Brooklyn vendor, Reiter8, who makes one of a kind tote bags from used canvas sails was going to do a workshop during the Caillebotte exhibition. It was a perfect fit for the Caillebotte's merchandise assortment—the product was related to the show, made of recycled materials, and from a local Red Hook artisan. I leave you to enjoy this video from this vendor and hope you will visit the Museum Shop during the Caillebotte show.

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