Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Born in Limoges, Renoir was four when his family moved to Paris. He began his career as a painter of porcelain, but at twenty-one he entered Gleyre’s studio and enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts. He first showed at the Salon in 1864, and ten years later he took part in the inaugural Impressionist exhibition, which he hung. After visits to Algeria and Italy in 1881–82 his work began to diverge from that of the Impressionists toward a more classical tradition. Crippled with arthritis in old age, he nevertheless continued to paint and to produce sculpture. Renoir died at Cagnes.

Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.