Pierre-Auguste Renoir
(February 25, 1841 - December 3, 1919) |
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portraiture, landscapes, still lifes Art Work
| Name: |
Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France |
| Nationality: |
French |
| Birth: |
February 25, 1841 |
| Death: |
December 3, 1919 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
portraiture, landscapes, still lifes |
| Medium: |
oil |
| Method: |
oil painting |
| Style: |
Impressionism |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
Sculpture
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Biography
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a leading French Impressionist painter. He is famous for his intimately rendered female portraits, particularly nudes, that show his subjects in candid scenes of leisure.
Born to a working class family in 1841, Renoir was employed in a porcelain factory as a young man, where he given the task of illustrating fine china. In 1862, Renoir began studying art formally with Charles Geyre. In Paris, he came into contact with many of the aspiring Impressionists of the day, Sisley, Bazille, and Monet, whose influence his later work would show. Renoir first showed his work in the Paris Salon in 1864, but did not reach fame until 1874 when he exhibited six paintings in the first Impressionist Exhibition.
During his time in Paris, Renoir's painting style was very representatively Impressionistic. His subjects comprised the many social events of life in the city, and he narrated these scenes with lively brush strokes and colorful palettes. In 1876, Renoir produced his most well known work, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, which depicts a popular dance garden crowed with people near his home. The painting exemplifies much of Renoir's work with its liveliness of movement, bright colors, and dappled play of light and shadow.
In 1881, Renoir traveled through Europe to study the works of the classical masters, including Velasquez in France, Titian in Florence, and Raphael in Rome. His study of these works led to a more severe and restrained style as Renoir attempted to improve his drawing technique and classicize his style. In 1883, the painter spent some time in Guernsey, painting the local landscape. This was a prolific period for the artist--Renoir completed over a dozen paintings in only a month. In 1890, Renoir married Aline Victorine Charigot. The couple had already had a son in 1885, and the mother and son were a frequent subject of Renoir's paintings.
In his later years, Renoir developed severe arthritis, and his mobility was increasingly limited. The artist was wheelchair-bound for the last two decades of his life, but he continued to work. An assistant was required to place the paintbrush in his hand, and aid his with clay sculpting, but Renoir remained surprisingly dedicated to his art until his death in 1919. |
Samples of Work
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