‘A world detached from struggles of urban life’: a rare exhibition of Renoir drawings

Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Famed impressionist painter’s lesser-seen drawings are the focus of a major new exhibition that invites us into the stages of his artistic process

His luminous colours and sensual brushwork adorn countless mugs, posters and tote bags as well as blockbuster exhibitions. But the commodification of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and his fellow impressionist painters has been missing something.

Renoir was an accomplished draftsman who produced a distinguished but largely unheralded collection of drawings, pastels, watercolours and prints.