Art News: Renoir and Love at the National Gallery, Tickets and What to See

Renoir and Love, at the National Gallery in London until 31 January 2027, is the gallery's first exhibition devoted to Pierre-Auguste Renoir since 2007, and the gallery says its advance ticket sales broke its record before the show opened on 3 October. It brings together 40 paintings of couples, dances, outings and the pleasures of Paris in the 1870s and 1880s, organised with the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

What is on show

The centrepiece is Bal du moulin de la Galette, of 1876, Renoir's crowded open-air dance in Montmartre, lent by the Musée d'Orsay and shown in Britain for the first time. Beside it hang Dance at Bougival, of 1883, from Boston, in which the young Suzanne Valadon, later a painter herself, dances in a red bonnet; Mother Anthony's Tavern, of 1866, from the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, an early picture of Renoir's friends round an inn table at Marlotte; Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (The Rowers' Lunch), of 1875, from the Art Institute of Chicago; Young Mother, of 1881, from the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia; and a Self-Portrait of about 1875 from the Clark Art Institute.

The theme is love in its broadest sense: courtship and flirtation, friendship, family and the shared pleasures of dancing, boating and eating out that Renoir painted at the height of Impressionism. It is a show of sunlight, crowds and touch, and a reminder of how quickly he could make a scene of modern Paris feel both casual and composed.

Renoir and Love tickets and prices

• Dates: until 31 January 2027, in the Sainsbury Wing, which is now the gallery's main entrance.
• Tickets: £20 from Sunday to Thursday, £25 on Friday and Saturday. Under-18s and National Gallery members go free.
• Pay what you wish: on Friday evenings from 23 October 2026 to 15 January 2027 you can pay what you wish, from £1, for time slots between 5.30 and 7.45pm, booked online in advance or on the day.
• Opening times: the gallery is open daily from 10am to 6pm, and until 9pm on Fridays. It is closed from 24 to 26 December and on 1 January.
• Booking: tickets are timed and sold through the National Gallery's website. Weekend slots and the Friday evenings are the busiest, and groups of seven or more must book in advance.

Renoir in London this winter

The National Gallery's own collection includes Renoirs that can be seen free on the same visit, and the Courtauld Gallery has La Loge, of 1874. At the Royal Academy, Painting the French Riviera follows the painters drawn to the Côte d'Azur, where Renoir spent his last years at Cagnes-sur-Mer. Our guide to what's on this week covers the rest of London's autumn shows.

Owning a Renoir, or a print by him

Renoir was prolific, and paintings by him come to market more often than by most of the Impressionists. The first questions are always the same: whether a work is recorded in his catalogue raisonné, what its history is, and its condition. Small oil sketches and late studies, painted quickly at Cagnes, are a different market from the finished pictures of the 1870s and 1880s.

He also made etchings and lithographs, and they are an affordable way to own his work: one of his lithographs of his son Jean as a child sold for £5,160 in London in September. Posters and later reproductions of Bal du moulin de la Galette and Dance at Bougival are everywhere, so the paper, the printing and any signature or stamp need checking first.

If you own a work by Renoir and are thinking of selling, send us photographs of the front and the back for a free valuation. There is no obligation to sell, and we act for you rather than for the saleroom.

Cover: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Bougival, 1883. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, now in Renoir and Love at the National Gallery. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.