Portrait of Charles and Georges Durand Ruel

Paul Durand-Ruel was a French art dealer who is associated with the Impressionists. He was one of the first modern art dealers who provided support to his painters with stipends and solo exhibitions. He recognized the artistic and fashionable potential of Impressionism as early as 1870, and his first major exhibition of their work took place at his London gallery in 1872. Eventually Durand-Ruel had exhibitions of Impressionist and other works (including those of expatriate American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler who lived in London) at his Paris and London galleries. He also brought their work to New York, doing much to establish the popularity of Impressionist art in the United States. During the final three decades of the 19th century Paul Durand-Ruel became the best known art dealer and most important commercial advocate of French Impressionism in the world. He succeeded in establishing the market for Impressionism in the United States as well as in Europe. Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley are among the important Impressionist artists that Durand-Ruel helped to establish.