Exhibition : Renoir and Love at the Orsay Museum - From March 17 to July 19, 2026
Categories : Exhibitions, published on : 4/21/26
Auguste Renoir’s joyful, discreet and tender vision, devoid of any hint of sentimentality, ribaldry or drama, distinguishes him from the other painters of his day.
The artist locates the interactions he depicts in his paintings in the public space, the new, modern social and natural settings – theaters, restaurants, guinguettes, boulevards and gardens – frequented by various social classes.
Theses popular “scenes” of modern love encouraged greater freedom of morals and the blossoming of “illicit” loves, in an era when bourgeois conventions and religious morality still governed romantic and sexual relationships.
Although his depictions were still marked by traditional gender stereotypes, Renoir revived the memory of Watteau’s, Boucher’s and Fragonard’s “fêtes galantes” [courtship parties] in order to re-enchant relationships between men and women and, implicitly, examine the question of male desire and female consent.
This exhibition Renoir et l'Amour (Renoir and Love) at the Orsay Museum, co-organized with the National Gallery in London and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, reexamines Renoir’s fundamental contributions to impressionism and 19th-century art history through the complex, universal notion of love, the central driving force of his work.
It provides a new perspective on paintings that are so well-known that it has become difficult to perceive how radical they are.
For the first time since 1985 (the year the last Renoir retrospective was held in Paris, at the Grand Palais), some of the artist’s and impressionism’s greatest masterpieces will be brought together in France.
Dates and opening hours:
From March 17 to July 19, 2026
Every day from 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., except Mondays.
Open late on Thursdays, until 9:45 pm.
The galleries close at 5:30 pm (9:15 pm on Thursdays).
Admission fees:
Full Price Exhibition: €16.00 online / €14.00 on-site
Reduced Price Exhibition: €11.00 on-site only
Evening Price Exhibition: €12.00 online / €10.00 on-site
Child Price Exhibition: €13.00 online / €11.00 on-site
How to get to the Musée d'Orsay from the Hotel Jardin Le Brea?
Musée d'Orsay - Esplanade Valéry Giscard d'Estaing 75007 Paris
- From the Hotel Jardin Le Bréa, take metro line 12 to Notre-Dame-des-Champs (5-minute walk), direction Mairie d'Aubervilliers, and get off at the Solférino station.
The museum is then a 5-minute walk from there.
The total travel time from our hotel to the Musée d'Orsay by metro is approximately 15 minutes.
And if you prefer to walk, the Musée d'Orsay is a 30-minute walk down Boulevard Raspail.
Practical Information
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
La Promenade, 1870
© Image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum
