Renoir at the Theatre: Looking at La Loge

128 pages, paperback, 26 x 216 mm, 80 colour illustrations
PRICE: £20.00
ISBN: 978 1 903470 73 2

Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen and Barnaby Wright

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Loge (The Theatre Box), 1874, is one of the masterpieces of impressionism and a major highlight of The Courtauld Gallery's collection. Its depiction of an elegant couple on display in a loge epitomises the Impressionists' interest in the spectacle of modern life. At the heart of the painting is the complex play of gazes enacted by these two figures. In turning away from the performance, Renoir focused instead upon theatre as a social stage where status and relationships were on public display.

This book accompampanies an exhibition in celebration of The Courtauld Institute of Art's 75th anniversary which unites La Loge for the first time with Renoir's other treatments of the subject with the loge paintings by contemporaries, including Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas. Concentrating on the early yes of Impressionism during the 1870s, the books explores how these artists used the loge to capture the excitement and changing nature of fashionable Parisian society. Lavishly produced contemporary journals such as La Mode Illustree included fine hand-coloured engravings showing the latest fashions modelled by elegant ladies in theatre boxes. A rich selection of this little-known graphic material from contemporary Parisian journals, as well as caricatures from the popular press, will also be examined.

Accompanies an exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, London, 21 Feb - 25 May 2008, marking the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Courtauld Institute of Art in 1932.