Renoir, Pierre Auguste 1841-1919
French Impressionist artist

Born in Limoges, he began at the age of 13 as a painter on porcelain, and later of fans. He made his first acquaintance with the work of Antoine Watteau and Fran�ois Boucher, which was to influence his choice of subject matter as deeply as Impressionism was to influence his style. He entered the studio of Charles Gleyre in 1862 and began to paint in the open air about 1864. From 1870 onwards he obtained a number of commissions for portraits. In 1874-79 and in 1882 he exhibited with the Impressionists his important, controversial picture of sunlight filtering through leaves, the Moulin de la Galette (in the Louvre), dating from 1876. He visited Italy in 1880 and during the next few years (1884-87) painted a series of Bathers in a more cold and classical style influenced by Jean Ingres and Raphael. He then returned to hot reds, orange and gold to portray nudes in sunlight, a style which he continued to develop until his death, although his hands were crippled by arthritis in later years. His works include The Umbrellas (c.1883, National Gallery, London) and The Judgement of Paris (c.1914).