Pierre-Auguste Renoir

After years as a struggling painter, he eventually became one of the most highly regarded artists of the 19th century. His early works were typically Impressionist snapshots of life, full of vibrant colour and light. By the mid-1880s, however, he had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women.

A collaborative famous exhibition in Paris in 1874 with his friends, Pissarro, Monet, Cézanne and Degas, became known as the first Impressionist exhibition, known as the making of the Impressionist movement, the primary group included artists Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Mary Cassatt. A critical review of their show, in which their works were described as ‘impressions’ rather than finished paintings saw the movement adopting the name, “Impressionist”.  

The final decades of his life proved to be among his most productive.  In 1913, at the age of 72, Renoir claimed, “I’m starting to know how to paint. It has taken me over fifty years’ work to get this far and it’s not finished yet.”