Donald Trump has criminally bad taste in just about everything. He orders his steaks well done and drowns them in ketchup. His Manhattan penthouse is gold and famously gaudy. He wears shiny suits that never seem to fit properly. And then there’s his taste in art: the man loves himself a bit of Pierre-Auguste Renoir. For years, Trump had what he liked to boast was an “original Renoir” on his private jet. That has been proven to be nonsense: the original of the painting in question – Two Sisters (On The Terrace) – is in a Chicago gallery and Trump has a fake. Still, he likes it very much and has now relocated it to Trump Tower. Melania Trump also has a fake Renoir in her office.
The tasteless Trumps might enjoy Renoir, but so do a lot of people. Why am I slandering the French Impressionist? I’ll tell you why: I recently visited the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (home to the world’s single largest collection of Renoirs) and, after looking at 10 million pictures of dough-faced women, I had something of a revelation: Renoir is incredibly overrated.
