Dr. Martha Lucy, deputy director for research, interpretation, and education at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, will present a special evening lecture titled “The Trouble with Renoir” on Friday, Jan. 17, at 6 p.m., in the Pavilion Auditorium.
This lecture is presented in conjunction with the special exhibition Renoir: The Body, The Senses, on view through Jan. 26.
The exhibition is half-price on Fridays from 5 to 8 p.m. No reservations are required; simulcast in the Kahn Auditorium.
Renoir is one of the most beloved artists of all time but also one of the most detested. While one critic in 1912 named him “the greatest living painter,” another, writing in 1986, called him “the worst artist ever to achieve canonical status,” the museum said in a news release.
Lucy unpacks the wildly divergent reactions to Renoir over the past hundred years, focusing especially on the voluptuous nudes presented in the Kimbell’s special exhibition.
Lucy, a specialist in 19th-century European art, has published many essays on topics ranging from Darwinian themes in the work of Odilon Redon to the motif of the mirror in Impressionist painting.
– FWBP Staff