The Musée d'Orsay is devoting two separate exhibitions to Pierre-Auguste Renoir to explore his early paintings and the importance of drawing in his work. Together, both collections revisit the career of the Impressionist artist.
Auguste Renoir was one of the greatest masters of Impressionist painting, and the Musée d'Orsay is showing a rarely seen side of his work as part of an exceptional tribute.
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Through two original exhibitions, Renoir and Love and Renoir Drawings the Paris museum is celebrating the genius of line and colour.
According to the curators, the shows reveal the close relationship between his paintings and his drawings, in particular from the 1880s onwards when he began to move away from Impressionism.
One of the highlights of the exhibition is Luncheon of the Boating Party.
Painted orginally in 1881, the work is making its return to Paris. Very rarely loaned, it is usually exhibited at a museum in Washington, and has pride of place among Renoir's other masterpieces.
Among the highlights are three paintings of dancing couples, including a rare one from a private collection.
"When he produced these three dancing couples in very large formats; it's the first time in the history of art that an artist has depicted this subject in this way, and these are works that are profoundly full of love, tenderness and desire, in which Renoir's ideal of love is fully expressed," explains Paul Perrin, Director of Conservation and Collections at the Musée d'Orsay.
The second part of the exhibition is devoted to Renoir's drawings, works that have rarely been seen by the general public, but which allow visitors to see that his masterful technique.
"[The exhibition] is revealing a totally unknown side of his work. Renoir was not just a painter, he was not just a painter of colour, of the outdoors, of light; he was also a great draughtsman," says Perrin. "He drew, in fact, throughout his career, for almost 60 years, and that's what we want to show you. It includes drawings, watercolours, pastels and sanguines, and really shows the full extent of his talent beyond painting."
Renoir and Love and Renoir Drawings are on at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris until 19 July 2026.
