Pierre Auguste Renoir

born Limoges, France, 1841; died Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, 1919

BiographyPierre Auguste Renoir was born in the small manufacturing town of Limoges, France. His family moved to Paris when he was four years old. At thirteen he began working at a ceramics factory where he painted flowers on porcelain. Later he supported himself by decorating fans. In 1861 he joined the Gleyre Atelier to begin studying painting. After a year he began to work without a teacher, adapting Gustave Courbet's trick of using a palette knife, and painting with purer and lighter colors.

He first exhibited in 1868; he also participated in the famous Nadar exhibition of Impressionists in 1874. He was dependent on portraiture for his living until the auctions of his works in 1875 and 1877 which brought him some independence and enabled him to travel.

Suffering from failing eyesight in his later years, Renoir began to use stronger colors. His last years were spent in Provence where he continued to paint although he could only get about in a wheelchair and his hand was so crippled with arthritis that his brush had to be strapped to his wrist. He died in Cagnes, France.

(Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

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