Artists
Pierre Auguste Renoir
French, 1841-1919Renoir was born on February 25, 1841, in the small manufacturing town of
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. In 1883 a sort of break occurred in his work. He felt he had gone to the end of Impressionism; he was reaching the conclusion that he did not know how to paint or draw. This bewilderment and discouragement, though exaggerated, had a salutary effect, for Renoir reviewed his methods, again studied the works of old masters whom he loved and went on painting pictures, better than before.
Suffering from failing eyesight in his later years, Renoir began to use stronger colors. His last years were spent in