Image: Geelong Art Gallery
Geelong Gallery has opened ‘Discovering the Impressionists: Paul Durand-Ruel, Art Dealer Among the Artists’, an international exhibition that brings together more than 70 paintings across two generations of Impressionist artists. The show runs from 20 June to 11 October 2026 and is presented in Geelong Gallery’s 130th year, in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia and ACPA Advising Curating Producing Art.
The gallery describes the exhibition as the most ambitious international project in its history. It spans five galleries and includes works from private collections in France, the majority of which have never before been seen in Australia. According to the gallery, the presentation traces the history of Impressionism alongside Paul Durand-Ruel, the dealer who supported the movement when Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and their peers were ridiculed and commercially shunned.
Works by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot and Camille Pissarro are shown in dialogue with paintings by a later group of artists whom the exhibition says were championed by Durand-Ruel in the movement’s later years. That second generation includes Albert André, Georges d’Espagnat, Gustave Loiseau, Maxime Maufra and Henry Moret. Geelong Gallery says these artists are now being rediscovered by art historians in Europe and are presented in Australia for the first time.
The exhibition is also framed by a number of rare loans and display features. Among the highlights are decorative panels by André and d’Espagnat, painted for the doors of Durand-Ruel’s private Paris apartment, and a partial recreation of the drawing room where he received collectors and displayed works from his collection. The gallery says the pairing of first- and second-generation works is intended to show shared interests in light and atmosphere, while also distinguishing the individual styles of each painter.
Geelong Gallery’s exhibition page places Durand-Ruel at the centre of the story, identifying him as an art dealer of uncommon conviction rather than a painter. The gallery states that he bought, promoted and nurtured Impressionist work at a time when the movement was still rejected by the establishment, and that over his lifetime he purchased and promoted more than 12,000 paintings. The exhibition uses that legacy to connect the movement’s early reputation with the later careers of artists who worked in its orbit.
The exhibition sits alongside related programming across the gallery’s 130th-anniversary season. On 9 August, the Arts Dialogue Series features Laurie Benson, a former Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria, while French-language tours in partnership with Alliance Française de Geelong are scheduled for 23 August, with additional dates listed for 14 July and 22 September. Other related events include ‘French Wine & Impressionism—A Sensory Masterclass’ on 14 and 22 August and ‘Seeing beyond the Masters’ on 29 August.
Geelong Gallery says tickets are on sale for the exhibition, with admission listed at $29 for adults, $25 concession, $15 for children and $22 for members. The gallery is open daily from 10am to 5pm.
