London is getting a major Renoir exhibition later this year

Even if your artistic endeavours peaked at those finger-paintings you did in nursery school and you generally know absolutely nothing about art, you’ll still probably be familiar with the name Renoir. A French impressionist painter famed for his distinctive brush strokes and creating romantic, dreamlike scenes, Pierre-Auguste Renoir is one of the most celebrated artists of all time – and now he’s heading to London.

The National Gallery will be hosting Renoir and Love, a new exhibition which will run from October 2026 until January 2027. The exhibition will show more than 50 of Renoir’s works, with a focus on pieces from between the mid-1860s and 1880s – the period considered most prolific in his career.

The collection of work has been curated in partnership with Paris’ famed Musée d’Orsay and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, marking the first time London has been the host of Renoir goods since 2007. The thing that’s getting aesthetes particularly fired up is the news that the exhibition will include Renoir’s Bal au Moulin de la Galette - one of his most famous paintings - making it the first time in history that it's ever been exhibited in the UK.

Renoir’s last hurrah around the UK was The National Gallery’s 2007 exhibition of some of his landscapes. It has promised that this 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”.

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 haven’t gone on sale yet, and there’s no word on pricing, although the National Gallery’s special exhibitions like The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize are generally around the £10-12 mark. You can sign up via their website to be the first to hear about ticket sales.

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