More than 100 years after his death, Pierre-Auguste Renoir is still recognized worldwide for his intimate portraits, dreamy landscapes, and depictions of nude bathers. (Despite this, recent protests at various institutions claim that “Renoir sucks.”) Though the artist began his career as an obscure painter of porcelain, Renoir was well-known by the early 20th century, and today he is celebrated for his highly original fusion of traditional painting styles and more outré ones derived from Impressionism, the late-19th-century movement with which he is associated. The guide below traces some of the key developments in the artist’s life and career, as well as some of his standout paintings.
In his youth, Renoir worked as a porcelain painter.
Born in 1841 in Limoges, a city southwest of Paris, Renoir earned money for his family as a porcelain painter when he was a young man. Honing his talents by copying artworks that hung … Read the rest