From September 23rd 2009 to January 4th 2010, the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais hold the exhibition « Renoir in the 20th century« . Forget everything you know about Auguste Renoir. Forget the impressionist, the « Moulin de la Galette », the « Luncheon of the Boating Party », all his most famous works exposed at the Musée d’Orsay, just across the Seine. Renoir in the 20th century concentrates on Renoir’s work after 1880, when he breaks with the style and the subjects that had made him famous.
« I’m starting to know how to paint. It has taken me over fifty years’ work to get this far and it’s not finished yet », declared Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) in 1913, at a time when a major exhibition of his work, including the large nudes painted at the turn of the twentieth century was on show in Paris. The critics of the time considered him as the greatest living painter with imperishable youth. The new generation of the time, Picasso, Matisse, and his contemporaries Cézanne and Monet, expressed their admiration for the master and in particular for his « last manner », referring to his work at the turn of the century.
Since then, appreciation of « the late Renoir » has changed. The paintings from this period are now little known and often not particularly liked. This exhibition seeks to explore a period and aspects of Renoir’s work which are little known to the public while demonstrating his influence on other artists in France in the first half of the twentieth century. The exhibition brings together about a hundred of Renoir’s paintings, drawings and sculptures, from public and private collections all over the world. These nudes, portraits and studies are occasionnaly shown alongside works by Picasso, Matisse, Maillol or Bonnard, as a testimony to Renoir’s posterity.
Come in Paris to see this exceptional exhibition and stay at one of the Maurice Hurand Hotels! The Hotel Bourgogne and Montana is only a few steps away from the Grand Palais…
Useful Information:
From September 23rd 2009 to January 4th 2010. Opened everyday except Tuesdays from 9:30am to 10pm (from 10am on Wednesdays, from 8am on Thursday).
Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais – 3 avenue du Général Eisenhower – 75008 Paris (Metro Franklin Roosevelt or Champs Elysées Clémenceau, lines 1, 9 and 13).
Admission: 11€ or 8€.