‘Passion for Renoir’ is the title of the exhibition which will be on show at the Prado Museum, from October 19 to February 6, 2011. For the first time in Europe, the Madrid-based museum will present 31 works by the French artists kept at the Clark Institute, American institution which hosts one of the most important collections by the Impressionist painter.

For more than three months, the Prado will display on its walls this varied collection which contains examples of all the genres cultivated by Renoir: portrait, female figure, nudes, landscape, still life and flowers.

Some of the highlights include Self-portrait (1875), which, according to the museum, is “a painting, whose treatment varies from his usual delicate style, revealing instead a deep desire for expression”; The Portrait of Madame Monet (1974) is “on the limit between the portrait and the genre painting while displaying an unconventional, fragmented brushstroke.”

Pierre-August Renoir (1841-1919) is one of the maximum exponents of Impressionism. All his life he worked with absorbing passion for painting which provided him with great prestige and popularity among his contemporaries.

The paintings to be shown next autumn belong to one of ‘the best’ among the collections amassed by Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956),American art collector and founder of Steling & Francine Clark Institute (Williamstown). This is the first monographic exhibition dedicated to Renoir in Spain.

The core of the collection of paintings belonging to the American institution comprises a great number of Impressionist paintings acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark over four decades. For the Clarks, Pierre Auguste Renoir represented the quintessence of Impressionism which is why they acquired more than 35 of his paintings, including some of his most important works. 

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