The Frick Presents Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-Length Format

In early 2012, The Frick Collection will present an exhibition of nine iconic Impressionist paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, offering the first comprehensive study of the artist's engagement with the full-length format, which was associated with the official Paris Salon in the decade that saw the emergence of a fully fledged Impressionist aesthetic.

The project was inspired by La Promenade of 1875-76, the most significant Impressionist work in the Frick's Permanent Collection. It explores Renoir's portraits and subject pictures of this type from the mid-1870s to mid-1880s. Intended for public display, these vertical grand-scale canvases are among the artist's most daring and ambitious presentations of contemporary subjects and are today considered masterpieces of Impressionism.

On view only at the Frick, Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-Length Format is a landmark exhibition, bringing together, with the Frick painting, several beloved masterpieces from around the world. Works on loan from international institutions are La Parisienne (1874) from the National Museum of Art, Cardiff; The Umbrellas (c. 1881 and 1885) from The National Gallery, London (first time since 1886 on view in the United States); and Dance in the City and Dance in the Country (1882-83) from the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Works on loan from American institutions are The Dancer (1874) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Madame Henriot "en travesti" (1875-76) from the Columbus Museum of Art; Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (1879) from the Art Institute of Chicago; and Dance at Bougival (1882-83) from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition will be shown in the Frick's Oval Room, a gallery traditionally used for the display of full-length portraits from the institution's Permanent Collection.