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A piece of Paris is arriving in London later this year. Known for his soft tones, wispy brushstrokes and dreamlike romantic vignettes, the National Gallery is putting on a huge exhibition dedicated to one of the greatest French impressionists: Pierre-Auguste Renoir. And we’ve named it one of the best art shows coming to the capital city in 2026. Here’s why.
Renoir and Love will be at the National Gallery from October 3 2026 until January 31 2027. More than 50 works will go on display, with the show focussing on the most significant and prolific years of the artist’s career, from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s. It’s been curated in partnership with Paris’s Musée d’Orsay and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.
It’s the first time that London is hosting a Renoir exhibition since the National Gallery put on a display of his landscapes in 2007. The National Gallery promises that the show will ‘[trace] the evolution of the imagery of affection, seduction, conversation, male camaraderie and the sociability of the café and theatre, as well as merry-making, flirtation, courtship and child-rearing in Renoir’s art’.
This one’s particularly exciting as Renoir’s most famous work (and one of the most celebrated works of the impressionist movement) ‘Bal au Moulin de la Galette’ (‘Dance at the Moulin de la Galette’) will go on display in the UK for the first time ever. The masterpiece, which depicts a leisurely crowd of Parisians on a Sunday afternoon in Montmartre, is currently residing at the Musée d’Orsay.
Christopher Riopelle, the exhibition’s co-curator said: ‘More than any of his contemporaries, Renoir was committed to chronicling love and friendship and their informal manifestations as keys to modern life. Whether on Parisian street corners or in sun-dappled woodlands, he understood that emotion could be as fleeting, as evanescent, as blinding, as his other great and transitory subject, sunlight itself.’
Tickets for the exhibition haven’t gone on sale yet but you can sign up to be the first to hear about them here.
See all of the 12 best art exhibitions coming to London in 2026 here.
Did you see that a huge Frida Kahlo exhibition is coming to London this summer?
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