Pierre-Auguste Renoir

1841-1919

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) painted light and female beauty with unmatched warmth. Starting as a porcelain painter's apprentice in Limoges before moving to Paris at three, he studied under Charles Gleyre and there befriended Monet and Sisley. In the late 1860s, working outdoors at La Grenouillère with Monet, he discovered how shadows reflect surrounding colors—a revelation central to Impressionism. He helped found the independent exhibitions of 1874, though critical derision stung. By the late 1870s, after his portrait of Mme Charpentier found success at the Salon, he became fashionable. Travels to Algeria and Italy in 1881 shifted his practice toward classical discipline and defined contours. From the 1890s onward, he softened again into luminous nudes and domestic scenes. Rheumatoid arthritis from around 1892 never stopped him; he painted until his death at Cagnes-sur-Mer, his brushwork adapting as his hands stiffened.