'Dance at Bougival' (1883) by Auguste Renoir. 2026 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS/BOSTON
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) paradoxically suffered from his own popularity and from the often haphazard dissemination of his work. It reached a point where even some of his lesser paintings were used (among other things) to illustrate boxes of overly sweet chocolates. From there, it is only a short step to viewing his oeuvre as at times mawkish.
However, the Musée d'Orsay, which is exhibiting Renoir's work for the first time, reveals a very different picture in two installations: one devoted to around 100 of his drawings – an idea from Colin B. Bailey, director of the Morgan Library in New York, who previously showed the exhibition there. The other is dedicated to roughly 60 paintings from the first two decades of his career. The result does justice to an artist who was not only one of the most endearing figures of the Impressionist movement, but also a painter of modern life and popular happiness.
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