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Pierre-Auguste Renoir

French, February 25, 1841 – December 3, 1919

Birth-PlaceLimoges, France, Western Europe, Europe

BiographyPierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, the child of a working class family. As a boy, he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talent led to him painting designs on china. He worked painting hangings for overseas missionaries, and painting on fans before he enrolled in art school. During those years, he often visited the Louvre to study the French master painters.

In 1862 he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frederic Bazille and Claude Monet. At times during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint.

Although Renoir first exhibited paintings in 1864, recognition did not come for another 10 years due, in part, to the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War.

During the Paris Commune in 1871, while he painted by the Seine River, a Commune group thought he was spying and they were about to throw him in the river when a Commune leader, Raoul Rigault, recognized Renoir as the man who protected him on an earlier occasion.

While living and working in Montmartre, Renoir engaged in an affair with his model, Suzanne Valadon, who became one of the leading female artists of the day. Later, he married Aline Victorine Charigot, and they had three sons, one of whom, Jean Renoir, became a filmmaker. After marrying his work changed. He became as interested in painting people as he was in painting landscapes.

In 1881 he traveled to Algeria, a country he associated with Eugène Delacroix, then to Madrid, Spain to see the work of Diego Velázquez, also to Italy to see Titian's masterpieces in Florence, and the paintings of Raphael in Rome. On January 15, 1882 Renoir met composer Richard Wagner at his home in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir painted Wagner's portrait in just 35 minutes.

In 1883, he spent the summer in Guernsey, painting 15 paintings in little over a month. Most of these feature Moulin Huet, a bay in St Martin's, Guernsey (These were the subject of a set of commemorative postage stamps, issued by the Bailiwick of Guernsey in 1983).

In 1887, a year when Queen Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee, and upon the request of the queen's associate, Phillip Richbourg, he donated several paintings to the "French Impressionist Paintings" catalog as a gift of his loyalty.

Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of "Les Collettes," a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer, close to the Mediterranean coast. Renoir painted even during the last 20 years of his life when rheumatoid arthritis severely hampered his movement, and he was wheelchair-bound. He developed progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right shoulder, requiring him to adapt his painting technique. In the advanced stages of his arthritis, he painted by strapping a brush to his arm, and created sculptures by directing an assistant who worked the clay. Renoir also utilized a moving canvas or picture roll to facilitate painting large works with his limited joint mobility.

In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his paintings hanging with the old masters.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir died in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, on December 3, 1919.

Selected works
Mademoiselle Romaine Lacaux (1864)
La Promenade (1870)
Monet Painting in His Garden at Argenteuil (1873)
La Loge (1874)
Woman with Fan (1875)
The Swing (1875)
Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (The Rowers' Lunch) (1875)
Girl with a Watering Can (1876)
Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre (1876)
Madame Charpentier and Her Children (1878)
Jeanne Samary (1879)
Acrobats at the Circus Fernando (1879)
On the Terrace (1881)
Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881)
The Piazza San Marco, Venice (1881)
Blonde Bather (1881)
By the Seashore (1883)
Umbrellas (1883)
Dance at Bougival (1883)
Fog at Guernsey (1883)
Children on the Sea Shore in Guernsey (1883)
The Bay of Moulin Huet Seen Through the Trees (1883)
Girl with a Hoop (1885)
Bathers (1887)
In the Meadow (1890)
The Apple Sellers (1890)
Two Girls at the Piano (1892)
Vase of Chrysanthemums (1895)
Coco (1905)
The Farm at Les Collettes, Cagnes (1908-1914)
The Concert (1918)

Person TypePerson

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