Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in 1841 in Limoges. In 1854 he began an apprenticeship as a porcelain painter in Paris and received instruction in drawing. In the Louvre he copied pictures from the French Rococo period. In 1861 he entered the atelier of the painter Charles Gleyre, where he came to know Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille. Renoir was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1862, and from 1864 he repeatedly submitted works to the Paris Salon, some of which were rejected. He joined the circle of artists and writers around Édouard Manet. In the 1860s and 1870s Renoir painted with Monet in the Forest of Fontainebleau and in La Grenouillère. In 1870 he was called up for military service, but became seriously ill and was discharged. The artists’ group Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs was founded in Renoir’s atelier. These artists rejected the exhibition practices of the Salon. Renoir was represented in the first three Impressionist exhibitions, beginning in 1874, and again in the seventh. He had his first solo show in 1879. He subsequently travelled in the south of France, Italy and North Africa. He died in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1919.