Artist Biography: Pierre Auguste Renoir | View All | Next  |
Artist Biography: Pierre Auguste Renoir
A concise biography about Renoir's life and work.
Auguste Renoir
French, 1841-1919
With Claude Monet, Renoir is known for his contributions to impressionism as the style developed in the late 1860s and early 1870s. In order to capture light and movement, their technique made use of broken brushstrokes and bold combinations of colors.
Like that of his contemporaries, much of Renoir's work depicted pleasurable occasions. He apparently once shocked his teacher by saying, "if painting were not a pleasure to me I should certainly not do it."
Renoir was born in Limoges in southwest France, where as a teenager he was apprenticed to a porcelain painter. In the early 1860s he attended Charles Gleyre's studio, where he met Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille. In 1869 Renoir and Monet worked together at La Grenouillère, where they created the style that was eventually labeled impressionism.
Renoir participated in several of the group's shows. He began to move toward a classicizing phase in 1879; this development was indebted in part to the work of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, which emphasized pure, clear line. It was also reinforced by a visit to Algeria in 1881, followed by a trip to Italy. Renoir's family and circle of acquaintances, as well as landscapes and still lifes, were his chief subjects from the late 1890s until his death. His late style combined the classicism of the 1880s with softer, almost diaphanous glazes of paint.
| Audience: | Grade 9 - Adult |
| Source: | National Gallery of Art Micro Gallery National Gallery of Art. Micro Gallery—National Gallery of Art. Online Content. Washington, D.C., 2004. |
| Availability: | Not available |
| Artists: | Pierre-Auguste Renoir. |
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Young Woman Sewing (1879) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Alfred Sisley (1876) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Two Sisters (On the Terrace) (1881) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Lucie Berard (Child in White) (1883) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Chrysanthemums (1881/82) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Madame Léon Clapisson (1883) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Fruits of the Midi (1881) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Woman at the Piano (1875/76) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Jean Renoir Sewing (c. 1899) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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The Laundress (1877/79) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (The Rowers' Lunch) (1875) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Seascape (1879) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (Francisca and Angelina Wartenberg) (1879) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Near the Lake (1879/80) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Studies of Pierre Renoir; His Mother, Aline Charigot; Nudes; and Landscape (1885/86) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Water (1916) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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Workers' Daughters on the Outer Boulevard (Illustration for Emile Zola's "L'Assommoir") (1877/78) Pierre-Auguste Renoir |
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