Pierre-Auguste Renoir
"Portrait of Claude Renoir painting" was completed in 1907. Claude, Renoir's youngest son, is portrayed ignorning his father who is painting his portrait. One of many of his young son, this painting is one of my favorites.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges in February, 1841, and brought up in Paris, where his father, a tailor with a large family, settled in 1845. From the age of thirteen he worked as an apprentice painter, painting flowers on porcelain plates. 
This early apprenticeship left a certain trace on his art, which was always decorative in spite of its later realism. After machines for coloring ceramics had been introduced, he had to switch to decorating fans and screens. Having saved some money, in 1862 Renoir entered the Atelier Gleyre and there made friends with Monet, Sisley and Bazille; some time later he met Pissarro and Cézanne.
He first exhibited at the Salon in 1864; after that the jury rejected
his works and only in 1867 accepted Lise, portrait of his model and
lover Lise Trehot. In 1867, he and Monet lived at Bazille’s house. In
1868-1870, he shared a studio with Bazille in Paris. Young artists sat
for each other, i.e. Frederic Bazille at His Easel by Renoir and
Portrait of Pierre-Auguste Renoir by Bazille. He spent the summer of
1869 with Monet at Bougival on the Seine; together they worked out the
main principles of the Impressionist method. It was most strongly
manifested in the plein-air studies of La Grenouillère (1869).
Above: ("Portrait of Lise" 1867. Oil on canvas. Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany)
Below: ("La Grenouillere" 1869. Oil on canvas. National Museum, Stockholm, Sweden)
It was in the 1870s, that Renoir’s Impressionism style
reached its peak. He worked at Argenteuil and in Paris. He participated
in the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874, 1876, 1877, and 1882, and was a
founding member of the review L’Impressionniste (1877), where he
published his article on the principles of contemporary art. The Swing
and the great composition of Le Moulin de la Galette, one of his
finest of masterpieces, were created during this time, the models for which were his
friends, mostly artists, and Montmartre girls. It is like a marvelous
tissue of interwoven sunlight and soft hazy blue.
Below: ("La Moulin de la Galette" 1876. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France)
Renoir achieved recognition earlier than his friends. In
1879-80, he sent several portraits to the official Salon, among them
Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary and Portrait of Mme Charpentier
and Her Children. The artist found himself at a critical point. In
1880, he met Aline Charigot, a common woman, whom he would marry in
1890, they had 3 sons: Pierre (1885-), Jean (1894 - ), who would become
an important film director, and Claude (1901- ), called “Coco”. The
same year, 1880, Renoir broke his right arm and for some time painted
with his left hand. In 1881, he traveled to Algeria, later to Italy,
where he was impressed by Raphael and the Pompeii frescoes. The
Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881) is certainly one of Renoir’s finest
canvases and was painted during this time.
Below: ("The Luncheon of the Boating Party" 1881. Oil on canvas. Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, USA
In the 1880s, he abandoned Impressionism for what is often
called the “dry style." He began a search for solid form and stable
composition, a search, which led him back to the masters of the
Renaissance. He worked more carefully and meticulously, his colors
became cooler and smoother. He later returned to hot rich colors and
free brushwork of his earlier days to portray nudes in sunlight, a
style, which he continued to develop to the end of his life.
In 1886, the art dealer Durand-Ruel exhibited 32 of
Renoir's paintings in New York, thus opening the American market for
Impressionism. The evidence of Renoir’s (and other Impressionists’)
success in the USA is evident by the great number of their paintings in American
museums. In December, 1888, Renoir suffered the first attacks of
arthritis, which would cripple his hands; in 1898 after a serious
attack of the disease, his right arm was paralyzed. From then on he overcame strong pains to paint by strapping a brush to his wrist. In
1919, not long before his death, he finished, in great pain, his
large-scale composition The Great Bathers (The Nymphs).
Above: ("The Bathers" 1887. Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA)
Renoir died in Cagnes on December 3, 1919 and was buried in Essoyes, next to Aline.
Biography courtesy of Olga's Gallery.
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