Book Description
This book accompanies the first major exhibition to focus exclusively on the portraits made by the Impressionist masters and their immediate predecessors. Breaking free from portraiture's conventions, the Impressionists expanded the notion of a portrait to reflect not only an individual's appearance but also his or her everyday surroundings. From traditional, tightly rendered likenesses to light-filled, loosely brushed paintings, the works in this volume depict a variety of subjects: friends, family members, patrons, public figures, and the artists themselves. Reproduced are key works by fourteen pivotal figures including Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, which reveal the astonishing originality and beauty of the Impressionists' portraits.

In an introductory essay, John House examines how the Impressionists' revolutionary approach to painting changed portraiture and discusses the meanings and implications of the various types of portraits they made. House explains how these portraits were used to establish public and private identities and what makes them such insightful expressions of modern life and identity.

An extended catalogue entry by curator Sona Johnston, assisted by Susan Bollendorf, accompanies each plate, discussing the identities of the paintings' subjects, the relationships between artists and sitters, and the place of each painting within the artist's oeuvre. The stories behind the canvases are revealed as Johnston highlights the social context of this influential circle of artists.

An essential volume for lovers of Impressionism, this beautiful book paints a revealingly intimate picture of the Impressionists' world.



Card catalog description
"This book accompanies the first major exhibition to focus exclusively on the portraits made by the Impressionist masters and their immediate predecessors. Breaking free from portraiture's conventions, the Impressionists expanded the notion of a portrait to reflect not only an individual's appearance but also his or her everyday surroundings. From traditional, tightly rendered likenesses to light-filled, loosely brushed paintings, the works in this volume depict a variety of subjects: friends, family members, patrons, public figures, and the artists themselves. Reproduced are key works by fourteen pivotal figures including Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, which reveal the astonishing originality and beauty of the Impressionists' portraits."--BOOK JACKET.


About the Author
Sona Johnston is Curator of Painting and Sculpture Before 1900 at The Baltimore Museum of Art. She has organized exhibitions on the art of Antoine-Louis Barye, Honoré Daumier, Winslow Homer, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and others. Her writings include numerous exhibition and collection catalogues. At present she is preparing a catalogue raisonné of the work of the American Impressionist Theodore Robinson.

John House is Professor of the History of Art and Deputy Director of the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. An expert on nineteenth-century French art, he has written requisite monographs on Monet and Renoir and has made major contributions to many notable books on Impressionist art.

Susan Bollendorf is Research Assistant in the Department of Painting and Sculpture Before 1900 at The Baltimore Museum of Art.

FROM THE PUBLISHER