"This book accompanies the first major exhibition to focus exclusively on the portraits made by the Impressionist masters and their immediate predecessors. Breaking free from portraiture's conventions, the Impressionists expanded the notion of a portrait to reflect not only an individual's appearance but also his or her everyday surroundings. From traditional, tightly rendered likenesses to light-filled, loosely brushed paintings, the works in this volume depict a variety of subjects: friends, family members, patrons, public figures, and the artists themselves. Reproduced are key works by fourteen pivotal figures including Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, which reveal the astonishing originality and beauty of the Impressionists' portraits."--BOOK JACKET.