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Born February 25, 1841, in Limoges, France. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was raised in Paris and from an early age he showed an exceptional talent for drawing. He was soon painting plates as an apprentice in a porcelain factory, and then worked for his older brother decorating fans. During these early years, Renoir would frequent the Louvre to study such French masters as Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, and Jean Honoré Fragonard.

In 1862, Pierre-Auguste Renoir entered the Atelier Gleyre in order to take his painting more seriously. It was there that he met Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Jean Frédéric Bazille. These and other painters influenced his art, which was marked by a sense of intimacy and realism that was frowned upon in traditional painting. Two notable works during this period were Diane Chasseresse (1867), and Alfred Sisley and His Wife (1868).

Pierre-Auguste Renoir struggled both financially and emotionally throughout the 1860s as Paris’ renowned state-run art show, the Salon, frequently rejected his works. In 1869, the Salon accepted his painting Lise, and he continued to study with Courbet and Manet, as well as Camille Corot and Eugène Delacroix. His famous Odalisque (1870), a darkly seductive portrait of an Algerian woman lounging in her boudoir, was much influenced by Delacroix.

Odalisque (1870) © Francis G. Mayer/CORBIS

During this period, a revolution later known as Impressionism encouraged artists to eschew the traditional painting methods of the Renaissance. The artists were inspired by nature and the visual reality in front of them and sought to portray it in a fresh and immediate way. A huge departure from the Old Masters, the paintings used vibrant light and color instead of the somber browns and blacks that had once dominated popular works.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet painted together at La Grenouillère, a bathing spot on the Seine, in 1869. Captivated with the play of light on water, the artists became obsessed with shadow and reflection and the local surroundings. At the time, the styles of the two artists were virtually identical, which shows how closely they collaborated with one another and shared discoveries.

In 1874, after being snubbed by the official Salon for their renegade painting styles, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and other Impressionist painters such as Monet, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot established their own independent exhibition. One of Renoir’s most notable works was The Opera Box (1874), which showed his fondness for rich and freely handled figurative expression.

The Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881) © Francis G. Mayer/CORBIS

At the time, the independent Impressionist exhibitions were ridiculed, but Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s star continued to rise. The artist received valuable support from several sources: Caillebotte, one of the first patrons of the Impressionists; art dealer Durand-Ruel; and collectors like Victor Choquet, the Charpentiers, and the Daidets. Renoir was frequently commissioned to paint family portraits, including Madame Charpentier and Her Children (1878). He also produced some of his most renowned society scenes during this period, including The Swing and The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette (both 1876). These paintings are jubilant and filled with soft light, a testament to the pleasures of life.

The 1880s brought a new direction to Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s paintings as he migrated away from the Impressionists in hopes of bringing a greater sense of form and structure to his work. He traveled to Italy where he was inspired by the art of Raphael, and his subsequent paintings reverted back to a tight, classical style. Works from this time, such as The Umbrellas (1883) and Les grandes baigneuses (1884-1887), are generally considered some of the artist’s least successful. Stripped of the warm sensuality that came naturally to him, the paintings suffered from self-consciousness. By the end of the decade, Pierre-Auguste Renoir had returned to form, infusing sensuality, passion and joy into such works as The Music Lesson (1891), Young Girl Reading (1892), and Sleeping Bather (1897).

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Though Pierre-Auguste Renoir enjoyed financial stability in his later years, bouts of rheumatoid arthritis made painting painful and often impossible. He continued to paint, however, sometimes with a brush tied to his crippled hand. He died at Cagnes-sur-Mer on December 3, 1919, but not before he lived to see his portrait, Madame Georges Charpentier (1877), hung in the Louvre in Paris.

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Related Links

Auguste Renoir Gallery Web site