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Pierre Auguste Renoir

Artist Biography

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Pierre Auguste Renoir

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 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 art, prints and posters of French master painters.

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. In the mid-1870s, he experienced his first acclaim his art, prints and posters hung in the first impressionist exhibition (1874). 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.

Renoir painted even during the last 20 years of his life when arthritis severely hampered his movement, and he was wheelchair-bound. In 1907, he moved to the warmer climate of "Les Collettes," a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer, close to the Mediterranean coast. There, he painted by strapping a brush to his arm, and created sculptures by directing an assistant who worked the clay. Pierre-Auguste Renoir died in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, on December 3, 1919.

Pierre Auguste Renoir Art, Prints and Posters Collection