Author(s): Pierre Assouline

Art

This deftly crafted biography explores the event-filled life of Paul Durand-Ruel (1831 - 1922), the dealer who 'made' the professional careers of Renoir, Monet, Sisley, Puvis de Chavannes and other painters of fin-de-siecle Paris. Based on unpublished documents and letters, and illustrated with over 40 illustrations of key figures, "Discovering Impressionism" is an important addition to our understanding of the genre, as well as being a dazzling tour of French and American art and cultural politics in the heady years before World War I.