Villas at Villers sur Mer

Gustave Caillebotte was wealthy enough not to need the Impressionists, which is precisely why they needed him. He bought their work when nobody else would, organised exhibitions, and left a bequest to the French state that forced a reluctant establishment to hang Monet, Renoir and Pissarro. His own painting is stranger than his reputation as a patron suggests. Paris Street, Rainy Day uses a perspective so steep it feels engineered rather than observed, and The Floor Scrapers gave labour the scale usually reserved for history painting. Critics at the time found the subject vulgar. Later he moved out to Yerres and then Petit Gennevilliers, painted boats, rowers and his own garden, and spent increasing time on yacht design. The late still lifes and garden pictures are looser and warmer than the Paris work. He died at forty five, with much of his output still in family hands.