Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841¨CDecember 3, 1919) was a French
artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist
style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has
been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs
directly from Rubens to Watteau".
Pierre-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 talents led to him being chosen to paint designs on fine china.
He also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorations on fans
before he enrolled in art school. During those early 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, Fr¨¦d¨¦ric Bazille, and Claude Monet. At times during the
1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Although Renoir first
started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, recognition did not
come for another ten years, due, in part, to the turmoil of the Franco-
Prussian War.
During the Paris Commune in 1871, while he painted on the banks of the Seine
River, some members of a commune group thought he was a spy, and were about
to throw him into the river when a commune leader, Raoul Rigault, recognized
Renoir as the man who had protected him on an earlier occasion.
In 1874, a ten-year friendship with Jules Le Coeur and his family ended, and
Renoir lost not only the valuable support gained by the association, but a
generous welcome to stay on their property near Fontainebleau and its scenic
forest. This loss of a favorite painting location resulted in a distinct
change of subjects.
Renoir experienced his initial acclaim when six of his paintings hung in the
first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. In the same year two of his works
were shown with Durand-Ruel in London.
In 1881, he traveled to Algeria, a country he associated with Eug¨¨ne
Delacroix, then to Madrid, in Spain, to see the work of Diego Vel¨¢zquez.
Following that he traveled to Italy to see Titian's masterpieces in
Florence, and the paintings of Raphael in Rome. On January 15, 1882 Renoir
met the composer Richard Wagner at his home in Palermo, Sicily. Renoir
painted Wagner's portrait in just thirty-five minutes. In the same year,
Renoir convalesced for six weeks in Algeria after contracting pneumonia,
which would cause permanent damage to his respiratory system.
In 1883, he spent the summer in Guernsey, creating fifteen paintings in
little over a month. Most of these feature Moulin Huet, a bay in Saint
Martin's, Guernsey. Guernsey is one of the Channel Islands in the English
Channel, and it has a varied landscape which includes beaches, cliffs, bays,
forests, and mountains. These paintings were the subject of a set of
commemorative postage stamps, issued by the Bailiwick of Guernsey in 1983.
While living and working in Montmartre, Renoir employed as a model Suzanne
Valadon, who posed for him (The Bathers, 1885-7; Dance at Bougival, 1883)
and many of his fellow painters while studying their techniques; eventually
she became one of the leading painters of the day.
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 token of his
loyalty.
In 1890 he married Aline Victorine Charigot, who, along with a number of the
artist's friends, had already served as a model for Les D¨¦jeuner des
canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881), and with whom he had
already had a child, Pierre, in 1885. After his marriage Renoir painted many
scenes of his wife and daily family life, including their children and their
nurse, Aline's cousin Gabrielle Renard. The Renoirs had three sons, one of
whom, Jean, became a filmmaker of note and another, Pierre, became a stage
and film actor.
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