Pierre-Auguste Renoir

1841 — 1919

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) was a French painter born in Limoges and one of the central figures of Impressionism. At thirteen he began work in a porcelain factory, and from 1862 he studied in Paris under Charles Gleyre. He took part in the first two Impressionist exhibitions, in 1874 and 1876, and by the late 1870s had become a sought-after portraitist. Warm light, soft brushwork and scenes of social life define his best-known pictures, among them Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876), Madame Charpentier and Her Children (1878), Luncheon of the Boating Party (1880) and Girls at the Piano (1892). After a trip to Italy and Algeria in the early 1880s he turned for a time to a firmer, more classical manner. From around 1892 rheumatoid arthritis made painting painful, and in 1907 he settled at Les Collettes in Cagnes-sur-Mer. He died there in 1919. The Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia holds the largest collection of his paintings.