Gustave Caillebotte may be the Rutherford B. Hayes of Impressionist painters. True, his name might not often be mentioned in the same breath as Monet and Renoir, but without this canvas jockey, the whole artistic movement might never have gotten off the lily pad.
Now, his art is coming to the Brooklyn Museum.
Thanks to a family fortune built on that most-reliable of 19th-century sectors, army uniform manufacturing, Caillebotte was free to not only indulge his limited artistic gifts, but, more important, underwrite art world upstarts Camille Pisarro, Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir.
When Caillebotte died in 1894, Impressionism was still very risque, so the bulk of his collection was bequeathed to his one-time beneficiary, Renoir. Time and again, the cash-strapped artist offered the collection to the cash-strapped French government (what else is new?), yet was turned down each time.
By the time the Elysée Palace acted, it was too late: the collection had already been sold to an American.
Which explains why you get to see it today.
“Gustave Caillebotte” at the Brooklyn Museum [200 Eastern Pkwy. at Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, (718) 638-5000], March 27-July 5. Admission is $8 ($4, students and seniors).
