French1841–1919
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
A founding Impressionist who began as a painter of porcelain. He painted Parisians at leisure in warm colour and dappled light, then from the mid-1880s turned to a more formal style for portraits and figures.
A life in paintings
- 1841Paint in tubes
The collapsible metal paint tube is patented, making it practical to paint outdoors.
Born - 1869Worked with Claude MonetCroissy-sur-Seine
In summer 1869 Monet and Renoir, young and close friends, set up their easels side by side on the Seine west of Paris and painted almost the same views. They painted together again at Argenteuil in the 1870s.
Source: National Gallery - 1870Franco-Prussian War
War breaks out. Renoir is conscripted into the cavalry.
- 1874The first Impressionist exhibition
A group of painters show their work independently of the Salon. A critic mocks them as ‘Impressionists’ and the name sticks.
- 1876
Was supported by Gustave CaillebotteParisCaillebotte collected Renoir's work and was a close friend. Renoir was the executor of his will, which left his collection to the French state.
Source: Musée d'Orsay - 1877
- 1892
- 1919Died
Circles
Exhibition · Paris · 1874
Impressionist exhibitions
The eight independent group shows, 1874-1886. Pissarro alone showed at all eight; Cassatt at four; Renoir 1874, 1876, 1877, 1882; Seurat and Signac only at the 8th (1886). Manet never exhibited with them.
- Alfred Sisley
- Camille Pissarro
- Claude Monet
- Edgar Degas
- Georges Seurat
- Gustave Caillebotte
- Mary Cassatt
- Paul Cézanne
- Paul Signac