I am deeply grateful to the authors of two books in particular: Eliza Rathbone, Katherine Rothkopf, Richard Brettell, Elizabeth Steele, and Charles Moffett for Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party,” published by The Phillips Collection; and Jean Renoir for his biographical memoir, Renoir: My Father, which gave me the flavor of Renoir’s voice and opinions.
I am indebted to the following biographical works: Renoir: The Man, the Painter, and His World by Lawrence Hanson; Renoir by John House, Anne Distel, and Lawrence Gowing; Renoir et ses amis by Georges Rivière; Renoir: An Intimate Record by Ambroise Vollard; and Renoir, His Life, Art and Letters by Barbara Ehrlich White.
For art-historical information, I especially thank Anne Distel of the Musée d’Orsay, whose scholarship I found in many texts. I also thank Robert Herbert for Impressionism; T. J. Clark for The Painting of Modern Life; Gabriele Crepaldi for The Impressionists; Anne Galloyer for La Maison Fournaise: table des canotiers; Benoît Noël and Jean Hournon for Les Arts en Seine and La Seine au temps des canotiers.
I am indebted to Colette for her colorful sketches of Paris music halls, including the fines charged performers in The Collected Stories of Colette; to Guy de Maupassant for the story Raoul Barbier tells Alphonsine, adapted from “Sur le Seine” or “En Canot”; to Edward King for My Paris: French Character Sketches, which gives his eyewitness description of Jardin Mabille and the tribute money that changed hands there; and to Jean Renoir for the item of Angèle “doing a boulevard” for Renoir. Ross King’s monumental The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism was particularly helpful in explaining the workings of the Salon and the events of the Franco-Prussian War and the Commune.
Limitations of space prevent me from mentioning the many other published reference sources. For a complete bibliography of works consulted, please see www.svreeland.com.
Several curators gave me their insights into Renoir and his work. I especially wish to thank Monsieur Jean Habert, conservateur-en-chef des peintures, Musée du Louvre. I am grateful to Madame Anne Galloyer, Conservatrice du Musée Fournaise, Île de Chatou, who answered graciously my many questions. Thanks also to Patrice Marandel and Stephanie Barron of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Nannette Maciejunes, Director of the Columbus Museum of Art; and Stephen Kern, formerly of the San Diego Museum of Art.
Karen Brown, Marna Hostettler, and Jo Cottingham of The Thomas Cooper Library of the University of South Carolina and Dyanne Hoffman, formerly of the University of California San Diego Libraries, were my magical links to books and materials I could not have accessed otherwise. I wish to thank Françoise Courgabe, Conservatrice de la Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris, as well.
For help in preliminary research, thanks go to Gayle Vreeland, and to Caroline Olivier for works in French. For all things pertaining to sailing and regattas, profound thanks to that spirited champion yachtsman, Craig Mueller, as well as to sailing enthusiast Terry Cantor. I am deeply grateful to artist Gerrit Greve for sharing generously his understanding of Renoir as a painter and as a man; to Dennis Sanders for his painter’s perspective while in Paris; and to my lively team of location scouts and photographers in Paris, Betty and Jan-Gerrit van Wijhe. Merci à Madame Noëlle Desplat, Edmond Ballerin, and the members of Association Sequana on Île de Chatou, which restores and builds reproductions of period boats, who made it possible for me to go boating on the Seine, see the spots immortalized by Impressionist painters, and imagine the races and river life.
For their critical reading and insightful commentary, I thank John Baker, Judy Bernstein, Julie Brickman, Mark Doten, Kip Gray, Jerry Hannah, Nan Kaufman, and John and Cheryl Ritter; and for his careful copyediting, Dave Cole. For all things French, and for her precise editorial advice, I am grateful to Madame Babette Mann, my window on French culture and sensibility. Enthusiastic appreciation goes to my energetic, supportive, and keen-eyed editor at Viking, Kendra Harpster, who grew along with me on this project. Especially and always, I thrive under the warm and wise counsel and editorial acumen of my agent, Barbara Braun, to whom I am deeply grateful.