Pierre-Auguste Renoir, a custodian of the human heart, has select works on display in Soho

There are moments in history when beauty becomes a form of defiance. Renoir was born into such a moment.

In a century accelerating toward mechanization and grinding industrial routine, he chose to illuminate tenderness. While cities were carved by new boulevards, governments reshaped identity, and the pace of daily life tightened into something metallic and swift, he devoted himself to the warmth of bodies, the softness of touch, the intimacy of afternoons where nothing was demanded except presence.

Select works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir are now on display at Park West Gallery in Soho. This is an invitation not only to view history, but to assume the honorable role of carrying it forward.

His decision to center joy was not frivolous. It was a declaration that the interior life—our capaci