The Man Who Midwifed Impressionism (As Well As Some Of America’s Great Art Collections)

Paul Durand-Ruel was the gallery owner who shepherded Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Manet, Morisot and their peers past the haughty skepticism of the Paris art establishment – and their works into the hands of U.S. collectors. “Do not think the Americans are savages,” he once wrote. “On the contrary, they are less ignorant, less close-minded than our French collectors.”