Renoir. Rococo Revival

For the first time the Städel Museum addresses the surprising references in Pierre-Auguste Renoir's art to Rococo painting. This large-scale exhibition comprising a selection of exceptional loans from the National Gallery (Washington, D.C.), Musée d'Orsay (Paris), the National Gallery (London), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles), as well as private collections.

Whereas Rococo painting was considered frivolous and immoral after the French Revolution, it underwent a revival in the 19th century. Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) particularly admired its loose and sketchy manner of painting as well as its brilliant palette, aspects that would have a formative influence on him and many other artists in the Impressionist circle. Taking as point of departure Städel collection's iconic works such as Renoir's After the Luncheon (1879) and Antoine Watteau's Embarkation for Cythera (ca. 1709–10), the exhibition will present the complex history of the Rococo's reception in 19th century France. Trenchant juxtapositions of Renoir's art with works of the 18th century as well as his own contemporaries – Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot – will provide an overview of Impressionism's intense artistic examination of the Rococo.

RENOIR. ROCOCO REVIVAL

IMPRESSIONISM AND THE FRENCH ART OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

 MARCH 2 - JUNE 19, 2022

 STÄDEL MUSEUM | FRANKFURT AM MAIN, GERMANY