‘Without Durand-Ruel, we Impressionists would all have died of hunger’: how one dealer and his family shaped art history

The Parisian dealer Paul Durand-Ruel changed the course of art history. His unflinching support enabled the Impressionist painters of the late 19th century to overcome years of criticism — and even ridicule — from the establishment, before they eventually became some of the biggest names in art.

As Claude Monet put it late in life: ‘Without Durand-Ruel, we Impressionists would all have died of hunger. We owe him everything. He was stubborn, persistent, risking bankruptcy many times to back us. The critics dragged us through the mud, but for him [the situation] was even worse!’

Fast-forward to the present day, and any major Impressionist collection — including those of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery in London — will feature several works that passed through Durand-Ruel’s hands.

This autumn, some 70 works owned by his family are being offered across two Christie’s auctions in Paris: in Durand-Ruel: Generations of Vision, a dedicated sale on 22 October 2026, and as part of the Art Moderne sale on 23 October.

Though seen in exhibitions worldwide, these works have not appeared on the market since being acquired by Durand-Ruel or one of his heirs — and added to the family collection.

At the collection’s core is a remarkable set of works by the leading Impressionists: Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro. Also represented are artists from the generation that succeeded them, such as Gustave Loiseau and Henry Moret, not to mention Picasso (with his war-time still life Nature morte au gruyère, painted in 1944).

Durand-Ruel was born in Paris in 1831. His father ran an art supplies shop that doubled as a gallery, though young Paul seemed set on a career either as a missionary or in the army. It was only after a thrilling encounter with a display of Eugène Delacroix’s work at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 that he had a change of heart. ‘Those pictures opened my eyes for good,’ Durand-Ruel said, confirming to him as they did ‘the triumph of modern art over academic art’. He became convinced that his role in life was to be of ‘service to true artists, by helping to make them better understood and appreciated’.

Succeeding his father in the mid-1860s, Durand-Ruel showed an early interest in the painters of the Barbizon School. Trade was interrupted by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, however, prompting relocation to London. It was there that the dealer met both Monet and Pissarro for the first time, they too having fled to the British capital for safety.

Back in Paris after the conflict’s end, he met their friends Renoir, Sisley and Degas. Among the lots offered in Durand-Ruel: Generations of Vision is Sisley’s painting of an orchard, Un Verger, which featured in the first Impressionist exhibition. This was held in the erstwhile studio of the photographer Nadar, in 1874. Two years later, Durand-Ruel hosted the second Impressionist exhibition at his gallery on Rue Le Peletier.

What he saw in the group’s pictures as groundbreaking, many other viewers saw as baffling — from the lack of finish and bright colours, to the modern, everyday subject matter. Reviewing the 1876 show in Le Figaro, art critic Albert Wolff wrote that the artists ‘throw a few colours onto the canvas at random, and then sign the lot’ — in the same way that those of unsound mind might ‘pick up stones on the road and believe they’ve found diamonds’.

Wolff added that where ‘some people burst into laughter in front of these [pictures], personally I am saddened by them’.

Sales were slow, very slow or non-existent, and it was only by dealing in work by other artists — including the Barbizon painters, and Old Masters such as Goya and Rembrandt — that Durand-Ruel was able to stay afloat. In many cases, he operated anonymously, so tarnished was he by his association with the Impressionists.

A widower with five children by the age of 40, he took a massive gamble on these artists, his role frequently moving beyond dealer to that of counsellor. When Monet wrote him a downbeat letter in 1882, explaining that he felt stuck in a creative rut, Durand-Ruel replied that ‘the challenges you’re undergoing will be useful. It’s adversity that gives rise to the best lessons. Don’t believe you have learnt nothing in your struggle.’

Durand-Ruel was also known to cover the Impressionists’ costs when it came to rent, clothing and medicine, enabling them to work — and produce paintings now considered masterpieces — without worrying too much about the future. He forged a relationship between dealer and artist that hadn’t really existed before. This extended to paying Monet and others a monthly stipend in return for exclusive rights to sell their work.

Other innovative strategies included hosting hundreds of monograph exhibitions, where group shows had previously been the norm, and opening the doors of his Paris apartment to potential customers, allowing them to see paintings hung in a domestic setting.

Across a period of four decades, Durand-Ruel purchased 1,500 Renoirs, 1,000 Monets and 800 Pissarros, not to mention 400 pictures each by Sisley, Degas and Mary Cassatt. He bought in bulk, building up a huge store of works, in essence waiting for taste and the market to turn in his favour — which ultimately they did.

In 1886, Durand-Ruel received an invitation from James Sutton, director of the American Art Association, to organise an exhibition at New York’s National Academy of Design. He duly set sail across the Atlantic with dozens of Impressionist works, the show proving so popular that he staged another the following year. Before the end of the decade, Durand-Ruel had opened a gallery on Fifth Avenue.

In the United States, he encountered a new, more open-minded type of collector. ‘The Americans don’t laugh, they buy,’ he said. Over time, an increasing number of Europeans began to like and acquire Impressionist pictures, too — including in London, where Durand-Ruel organised a show of more than 300 works at the Grafton Galleries in Mayfair in 1905, thought to be the largest ever exhibition of Impressionist art.

Two of the standout lots in Durand-Ruel: Generations of Vision — Monet’s Bord des falaises à Pourville and Pissarro’s Le Louvre, soleil d’hiver, matin — were part of that exhibition.

Durand-Ruel retired in 1913, handing over the running of his galleries to his sons, Joseph and Georges. He passed away nine years later, aged 90. Joseph and Georges would be succeeded by their heirs in turn — each family member a champion of innovative artists.

After more than a century of business, the Durand-Ruels closed their Paris headquarters in 1974, the New York branch by then also having ceased operations. His descendants continue to work successfully in the art world today, as gallerists, curators, art historians and also archivists — with the maintenance of an extensive historical archive documenting Galerie Durand-Ruel’s activities.

Paul was the subject of a major touring exhibition in 2014-15, held (under different titles) at the Musée du Luxembourg in Paris, the National Gallery in London, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Earlier this year, an exhibition was also devoted to him in Australia.

The dealer is remembered, above all, for his tenacious belief in the artistic importance of the Impressionists — even though that belief came at immense financial and reputational cost.

Looking back on his career, late in life, he said: ‘My madness had been wisdom. To think, if I had passed away at 60, I would have died debt-ridden and bankrupt, surrounded by a wealth of underrated treasures.’

Durand-Ruel, Generations of Vision will be on view at Christie’s in Paris, 16-22 October 2026. Highlights from the collection will be touring to New York (17-20 September), Hong Kong (24-29 September) and London (8-12 October)