Five Essential Books on Renoir, Chosen by His Top Curator

By Elena Vasquez

The exhibition Renoir and Love runs at the National Gallery in London until 31 January 2027, after debuting at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris earlier this year. It travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, from 28 February to 13 June 2027. The show has drawn mostly rave reviews and robust ticket sales — a striking result for an artist who remains surprisingly divisive.

The dissents are real. Some of Renoir's peers denigrated him. A decade ago, the so-called Renoir Sucks at Painting movement attacked him. One critic recently labelled him "the chocolate boxiest" of the Impressionists.

The exhibition's co-curator, Christopher Riopelle — author of Renoir: The Great Bathers (1990) — has now selected five key books for anyone wanting to go beyond first impressions.

What are the five books?

Riopelle's list spans 1962 to 2026. Each entry carries his verbatim verdict.

• Renoir, My Father (1962), by Jean Renoir. "Father and son, both artistic geniuses—a rare combination," Riopelle said. He calls it a film-maker's biography, "countless scenes set up visually, in flowing time," and notes the loving son wrote it "in far-off Hollywood."

Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age (1997), by Colin B. Bailey. Riopelle names Bailey "our leading Renoir scholar." The study covers 69 portraits and is, in his words, "bulging with new information" — indispensable to social historians as well as art historians. He hopes it returns to print.

Renoir in the 20th Century (2010), with essays by Roger Benjamin, Claudia Einecke, Guy Cogeval, Isabelle Gaëtan, Emmanuelle Héran, John House, Virginie Journiac, Martha Lucy, Laurence Madeline, Monique Nonne and Sylvie Patry. "Late Renoir: Marmite," Riopelle writes. Yet the period's admirers included Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and the collector Albert C. Barnes. Patry, he says, demonstrates why the allusive Classicism of the late works "played a key role in Modernism."

Renoir in the Barnes Foundation (2012), by Martha Lucy and John House. House assessed the largest and greatest of all Renoir collections, with Lucy "with him all the way." Riopelle writes: "it's as if we eavesdrop on a wickedly clever conversation between receptive student and brilliant, probing master."

Auguste Renoir: Lettres choisies (2026), edited by Augustin de Butler and Anne Distel. The volume presents 314 key Renoir letters tracing his career from 1865 to 1919. "At last, a meticulous scholarly edition," Riopelle said. "Finally we can 'hear' the master's voice. The wit is clear but so, too, the anxiety." He calls for a translation, to stand beside the newly translated Claude Monet letters.

Why does the list matter now?

The reading list doubles as a state-of-the-field report. Bailey's portrait study and Riopelle's 1990 volume mark an earlier generation of scholarship; the 2010 and 2012 volumes reflect the reassessment of late Renoir; the 2026 letters edition pushes the documentary record forward by a full career's span, 54 years.

Five books, six and a half decades of publishing, one argument: Renoir scholarship is resurging just as his canvases fill London's National Gallery.

Renoir and Love, National Gallery, London, until 31 January 2027; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 28 February–13 June 2027.