THIS BOOK GREW INDIRECTLY OUT OF THE CHAPTER ON manet and Degas in my 2016 book, The Art of Rivalry: Four Friendships, Betrayals and Breakthroughs in Modern Art. I am grateful to Matt Weiland, my editor at Norton, for his good judgment, humor, and patience, and to all his colleagues, especially Huneeya Siddiqui, at Norton. I am equally thankful to my brilliant and insightful agent Zoë Pagnamenta, of Calligraph, and to her colleagues Jess Hoare and, before her, Alison Lewis. And I would like to thank my publishers at Text (in Australia/New Zealand), Spectrum (in the Netherlands), Insel/Suhrkamp Verlag (in Germany), Rizzoli (in Italy), OneWorld Publications (in Great Britain), and Taurus (in Spain).
I owe a special debt of gratitude to MacDowell, the storied arts organization based in Peterborough, New Hampshire, where a fellowship allowed me to work on this book for two uninterrupted weeks in the fall of 2021. Moral support over a five-year period that included the hump of the Covid-19 pandemic was crucial as I worked on Paris in Ruins. For their encouragement, warmth, and camaraderie, I would especially like to thank my dear friends Jeremy Eichler and James Parker. I would also like to thank Ben and Judy Watkins, Meg and Joseph Koerner, Josh Ellsworth and Julia Gaviria, Seibel and Azita Bina-Seibel, Karen Naimer, Andrew Krivak and Amelia Dunlop, Pete and Lori Whiting, Kirstin Hill and Jonathan Schrag, Tony and Elsa Hill, and Steve Tourlentes and Amber Davis Tourlentes—all beloved friends in the Boston area—and Royal Hansen and Susan Hamilton, Geordie Williamson, Matthew Spencer and Annabel Crabb, beloved friends living elsewhere. I would also like to thank William Cain at Wellesley College; George Shackelford at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth; Kristin Parker at the Boston Public Library; and Adam Gopnik, who all offered wisdom, practical help, and encouragement on more than one occasion. I have been fortunate to have a staff position as an art critic at The Washington Post during the writing of this book. For their support and collegiality, I offer my heartfelt thanks to my editors Janice Page, Amy Hitt, and Steven Johnson, to my many superb colleagues at the Post, and to my friend Marty Baron, who brought me to the Post from The Boston Globe and before that, from Australia to Boston.
Finally, and most of all, I would like to thank my parents Michael and Ann-Margrete Smee, my beloved sister Stephanie Smee (an acclaimed French-to-English translator who helped me in so many ways), my brother-in-law Paul Schoff, my niece and nephew Nina and Jasper Schoff, and especially the three people who (perhaps because they saw little choice) managed to remain patient, loving, and good-humored throughout: my wife Jo Sadler and my children Tom and Leila Smee.
I dedicate this book to Soren Hansen, with love.