National Gallery exhibition to shine a light on works of Renoir

The National Gallery is to stage a major exhibition of paintings by Renoir, described as the “most significant” collection of the French impressionist’s work in the UK for 20 years.

The exhibition, Renoir And Love, will feature more than 50 works, and will go on display at the London gallery from October next year.

Organised in partnership with the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Renoir And Love will focus on the artist’s career between the mid-1860s and the mid-1880s.

A National Gallery spokesman said the exhibition “traces the evolution of the imagery of affection, seduction, conversation, male camaraderie and the sociability of the cafe and theatre, as well as merry-making, flirtation, courtship and child-rearing in Renoir’s art”.

Exhibition co-curator Christopher Riopelle, the Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings at the National Gallery, said: “More than any of his contemporaries, Renoir was committed to chronicling love and friendship and their informal manifestations as keys to modern life.

“Whether on Parisian street corners or in sun-dappled woodlands, he understood that emotion could be as fleeting, as evanescent, as blinding, as his other great and transitory subject, sunlight itself.”

The exhibition will be on display from October 3 next year until January 31 2027.