Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A stunning study of the life and work of Gustave Caillebotte -- until recently the "forgotten man" of Impressionism but now recognized as one of the most interesting and attractive artists in the group and as the painter of some of its most powerful and memorable images. The book includes beautiful color reproductions of all Caillebotte's most important works, his working drawings, and a selection of critical responses to his art when first shown.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This 1987 volume by Varnedoe, the curator of New York's Museum of Modern Art, offered one of the first collections of Impressionism's Caillebotte, who until recently remained an obscure figure, being overshadowed by Monet, Van Gogh, and the usual suspects. The text includes 200 monochrome and 72 color illustrations. A beauty for the price. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Caillebotte's wealth and youthfulness (he was 14 years younger than Degas) set him apart from the other French impressionists. A patron and publicist of the impressionist movement as well as a painter himself, he has been sorely neglected until recently. His pictures show us the world's sheer randomness as well as its patterns of order. Like Munch and Van Gogh, Caillebotte manipulated perspective to produce overwrought sensations of depth. He captured the boulevard's chaotic variety and the depersonalization of the modern city. His tautly focused realism, wide-angled spaces and cooly detached viewpoint upset his contemporaries, yet in today's cinematic culture his paintings resonate with familiarity. This superbly illustrated study by a New York University art professor does full justice, in text and pictures, to the ``forgotten Impressionist.'' (October 14) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Although only a modestly reworked version of Varnedoe's 1976 Gustave Caillebotte, this new publication is welcome. The original exhibition catalog was a landmark within revisionist Impressionist studies, anticipating C.H. Moffett's The New Painting, Impressionism, 1874-1886 (1986) as well as R.R. Brettell's A Day in the Country (1984). It was issued in modest numbers, however, and is now difficult to find. Varnedoe's new Caillebotte is copiously illustrated (95 color and 192 monochrome) and includes a catalog of 62 paintings with rich commentaries, a biographical essay, a collection of criticism (in original and in translation), and a bibliography. It also contains two exceptionally insightful essays (one by P. Galassi) on the intersection of photography and Caillebotte's painting. All in all, this is a sumptuous, scholarly publication and a mandatory purchase for any academic collection lacking the 1976 catalog. Those possessing that earlier catalog should be aware that while the new publication is far richer in plates and incorporates some scholarship of the last decade the documentation in its catalog of works is abbreviated and its bibliography lacks most pre-1976 material. Thus, for the library with the 1976 catalog in hand, this new volume must be seen as a valuable but by no means essential addition.-R.E. McVaugh, Colgate University