Exclusive exhibition at Luxembourg Museum

The Luxembourg Museum is just a 20 minute metro ride via line 4 from Hotel Sophie Germain, and it’s the perfect choice for a memorable outing. As well as its exceptional permanent collections, the museum regularly stages exclusive exhibitions. Its current show, ‘Paul Durand-Ruel: The Impressionist Gamble, Manet, Monet, Renoir’ runs till February 8th 2015, and is the exciting tale of one man’s discovery of the Impressionists.

The Luxembourg Museum is a spectaculr venue, and was the first in France to be opened to the public back in 1750. From 1818 it also became the first museum in France that was dedicated to contemporary art. The museum is one of the most important art venues in the capital, and since 2010 its management has worked closely with RMN Grand Palais to create innovative and exciting exhibitions.

Paul Durand-Ruel – the dealer who gave Impressionism to the world

Meet Paul Durand-Ruel, one of the most important art dealers in Paris, and champion of the Impressionist movement in an exhibition that comprises over 80 paintings, photographs, drawings and documents. The exhibition is concerned with a pivotal time, and takes a close look at the period between the end of the 1860’s and the start of the 20th century, when an eclectic group of avant-garde artists gained global recognition thanks to the gamble taken on them by this enterprising and inspiring dealer.

The exhibition is the first to be dedicated to one of the greatest art dealers of the late `19th and early 20th centuries. Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922) was one of the key figures in the history of Impressionism, and supported artists like Renoir, Manet and Monet from the onset of the 1870’s. He bought and sold thousands of paintings, often leaving himself on the brink of poverty, and made Impressionism an international sensation.

Responsible in part for the invention of modern art marketing, by the start of the 20th century Paul Durand-Ruel had amassed the largest collection of European and American Impressionist art in the world. Take an in depth look at the life of this remarkable man, who Renoir referred to as ‘a painting missionary’, as the Luxembourg Museum presents a unique retrospective of a career that would change the art world forever.

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• Paul Durand-Ruel, The gamble of the Impressionists
Exhibition from October 9th to February 8th, 2015
Musée du Luxembourg, 19 rue de Vaugirard, Paris 6e
Tel. : 0033 (0)1 40 13 62 00
Metro: Saint Sulpice, line 4 - Mabillon, line 10
RER B : Luxembourg (sortie Jardin du Luxembourg)
• Durand-Ruel biography

Picture copyright holder: Wikimedia - Photographer Hadrianus