Finally! Permission to Talk About Men

If you could live inside a nineteenth-century edition of GQ, what would it look like?

The aspirational style captured in Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men surely comes close. The dandies in Caillebotte’s oil paintings summer in crisp linen, look charmingly off-frame as they pose on the balcony, and wear bespoke suits to play cards in his Parisian pied-à-terre.

Like many of his fellow Impressionists, Caillebotte was a wealthy urbanite who captured his favorite people, bars, and social scenes in oil paintings. Unlike his contemporaries Édouard Manet or Edgar Degas, he turned his considerable talents to painting men. Instead of Spring, Caillebotte painted Boating Party.

Roughly 100 years later, Caillebotte’s choices still resonate. “Finally!” says Thomas Stewart, head of retail merchandising at Getty, “permission to talk about men.”

The Exhibition Store Experience

“It’s an extension of the visitor experience,” says Cory Gene Mayes, jewelry buyer for Getty. And it is just as artfully curated as the exhibitions themselves.

Our merchandisers begin their work on exhibitions roughly a year before they open to the public. During that time, they consult with curators, shop with unique purveyors, and collaborate with other museum specialists to bring the exhibition experience to the shelves. The result is a truly unique collection of jewelry, books, and gifts that both Stewart and Mayes were excited to expand. “Men, generally, are underrepresented in our gift assortment,” says Stewart. “Caillebotte has finally given us permission to celebrate them.”

Their menswear items included straightforward fare: a French horsehair top hat, French bow ties, and jacquard ascots. Plus "menswear" like Mayes’s takes on a nineteenth-century pocket watch, reimagined for every shopper: necklaces made from pocket watch chains; cufflinks with pocket watch faces; and women’s earrings made from watch gears, “Upcycled,” says Mayes, “so each piece is unique.”

Something for Everyone

While menswear is an exciting theme, exhibition stores offer something for everyone. There are collectibles like the enamel pins (Caillebotte adds the Top Hat, Umbrella, and Young Man at His Window pins to the collection) and the “cute character."

“Every exhibition has a hippo or dog or rabbit,” says Stewart. For Caillebotte, it’s The Dog Paul, his brother Martial’s Italian greyhound, painted in 1886. “A good boy who surely deserves a treat,” reads the accompanying wall text.

You’ll also find moments taken from the paintings themselves. Find yourself inspired to sketch the hands of fashionable passersby like Caillebotte? Grab Drawing for Absolute Beginners. Want to dine like you live in a grand Parisian home? Grab a set of crystal glasses from Luncheon’s lavish dinner.

“It was one of our most popular museum store pop-ups,” says Stewart. “Each time you come, you'll find something new, something sold out.”

Gustave Caillebotte: Painting Men is on at the Getty Center through May 25. But if you miss it, you can shop the exhibition store online, just in time to find Father's Day or graduation gifts.

And keep your eye out for more men’s gift items. Says Stewart, “We're going to springboard from Caillebotte to celebrating men and serving a visitor that has been generally neglected.”