|
|
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (February 25, 1841 - December 3, 1919)
was a French oil painting artist who was a leading figure in the
development of the
Impressionist
style.
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 French master painters.
In 1862 he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There
he met Alfred Sisley, Frederic Bazille and
Claude Monet. At
times during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint.
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.
During the Paris Commune in 1871, while he painted by the Seine
River, a Commune group thought he was spying and they were about to
throw him in the river when a Commune leader, Raoul Rigault,
recognized Renoir as the man who protected him on an earlier
occasion.
In the mid-1870s, he experienced his first acclaim when his work
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 his marriage he was to paint many scenes of his
children and their nurse.
In 1881 he traveled to Algeria, a country he associated with Eugène
Delacroix, then to Madrid, Spain to see the work of Diego
Velázquez, also to Italy to see
Titian masterpieces in
Florence, and the paintings of
Raphael in Rome. On
January 15, 1882 Renoir met composer Richard Wagner at his home in
Palermo, Sicily. Renoir painted Wagner's portrait in just 35
minutes.
In 1883, he spent the summer in Guernsey, painting 15 paintings in
little over a month. Most of these feature Moulin Huet, a bay in St
Martin's, Guernsey (These were the subject of a set of
commemorative postage stamps, issued by the Bailiwick of Guernsey
in 1983).
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 gift of his loyalty.
Around 1892, Renoir developed rheumatoid arthritis. In 1907, he
moved to the warmer climate of "Les Collettes," a farm at
Cagnes-sur-Mer, close to the Mediterranean coast. Renoir painted
even during the last 20 years of his life when arthritis severely
hampered his movement, and he was wheelchair-bound. He developed
progressive deformities in his hands and ankylosis of his right
shoulder, requiring him to adapt his painting technique. It is
often said that in the advanced stages of his arthritis, he painted
by strapping a brush to his arm, but other sources say that this is
not true. During this period he created sculptures by directing an
assistant who worked the clay. Renoir also utilized a moving canvas
or picture roll to facilitate painting large works with his limited
joint mobility. In 1919, Renoir visited the Louvre to see his
paintings hanging with the old masters.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir died in the village of Cagnes-sur-Mer,
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, on December 3, 1919.
Two of Renoir's paintings have sold for more than $70 million. Bal
au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre sold for $78.1 million in 1990.
Please visit our gallery of
Pierre Auguste Renoir Oil Painting Reproduction.
|
|
|
cart is empty
