Gustave Caillebotte
Caillebotte took rooms in an unfinished building on the avenue de l'Opera for the fourth Impressionist exhibition of 1879, organising, hanging and largely financing it, and exhibiting in it himself.
28 avenue de l'Opéra
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The unfinished building where Gustave Caillebotte organised, hung and largely paid for the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879 — the year the group nearly fell apart.
- 28 avenue de l'Opéra, 75001 Paris
- Site of the fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879
The place, briefly
By 1879 the independent exhibitions were in trouble. Renoir had gone back to the Salon, Cézanne and Sisley had dropped out, Monet was wavering, and the group's finances were poor. The fourth exhibition happened largely because Gustave Caillebotte made it happen.
He took a set of rooms in an unfinished building on the newly cut avenue de l'Opéra, organised the logistics, curated the hang, and covered costs. He also exhibited his own interiors and boulevard views in it. Degas was the other driving force, and the two of them held the thing together against a group that was actively dissolving.
It worked commercially — the 1879 show turned a profit and drew large numbers — which is a useful corrective to the story of Impressionism as uninterrupted rejection.
The building stands on a busy commercial stretch and is unmarked.
Key facts
- The fourth Impressionist exhibition, 1879
- Organised it, hung it, and paid for much of it
- Renoir, Cézanne and Sisley, that year
- A commercial success, unusually for the series
- Nothing survives; exterior only
Timeline
Caillebotte organises and funds the fourth Impressionist exhibition here.
On the map
Questions before you go
What was the fourth Impressionist exhibition?
The 1879 group show, held in rooms at 28 avenue de l'Opéra. Caillebotte organised, hung and largely financed it while several of the original exhibitors were dropping away.
Was it a failure?
No — it drew crowds and turned a profit, which cuts against the usual account of the Impressionist exhibitions as uniformly rejected.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Passage Choiseul
The covered arcade where Louis-Ferdinand Céline grew up over his mother's lace shop — reborn in his novel Death on the Installment Plan as the Passage des Bérésinas, the gaslit 'gas jar' of its narrator Ferdinand's childhood.
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École du Square Louvois
The municipal school Louis-Ferdinand Céline attended from 1900 to 1905, two minutes' walk from the family shop in the Passage Choiseul — the first classroom of the boy then registered as Louis-Ferdinand Destouches.
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Le Grand Véfour
The Palais-Royal restaurant Colette favored in her last years, a few doors from her apartment. A brass plaque still marks her seat.
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Café Napolitain
The boulevard terrace where the novel opens — an apéritif on the Right Bank, watching the evening crowd, the electric signs, and the last horse-cabs go by.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.