Who Are Renoir’s Mystery Girls? With Catherine Ostler

Welcome to Intelligence Squared, where great minds meet. I'm producer Mia Sorenti. Could one of Renoir's most iconic paintings conceal one of the most astonishing true stories of scandal and tragedy in Golden Age Paris? On today's episode, Catherine Osler, writer and historian, joins James Macaulay. journalist and author, to discuss Catherine's new book, The Renoir Girls.

In it, Catherine explores the untold story behind Renoir's pink and blue, a portrait that captures both the glamour of bell epoch Paris and the deep occurrence of family identity and upheaval beneath the surface. Let's join our host, James McAuley now with more. My name is James McAuley and I have the immense pleasure today of interviewing uh journalist, author, and historian Katherine Ostler about her brilliant new book, The Renoir Girls. This is an arresting read from start to finish and it is so many things all at once, but most of all, it is a haunting family story that really takes us into the dark heart of Europe's 20th century.

And it sits at the intersection of French history, Jewish history, British history, and perhaps most of all art, which turns out to be, you know, a language of beauty and anguish in this in this period. And it is a it is a real pleasure for me to be able to sit down and talk with Catherine about her uh true achievement with this book, which is a a real masterpiece of research and also of narrative. So Catherine, thank you so much for for joining me today. Oh, thank you so much, James.

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