Pierre - Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

 Pierre-Auguste Renoir aka Auguste Renoir , born in Limoges ( Haute-Vienne ) on February 25 , 1841 and died in the field of Collettes in Cagnes-sur-Mer on December 3 , 1919, is one of the most famous French painters .

Full member of the Impressionist group , he evolved in the 1880s to a more realistic style under the influence of Raphael . He was a painter of nudes, portraits, landscapes, seascapes, still lifes and genre scenes, pastellist, engraver, lithographer, sculptor and draftsman.

Figurative painter more interested in the painting of portraits and nude than in landscapes, he has developed an original way of painting, which transcends his first influences ( Fragonard , Courbet , Monet , then the Italian fresco ).

For about sixty years, the painter claims to have performed about four thousand pictures.

Pierre-Auguste says Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges , at n o  71 of the current Boulevard Gambetta , former St. Catherine Boulevard, February 25 , 1841.

At the age of 13, he apprenticed to the porcelain workshop Lévy Frères & Compagnie to decorate the pieces. At the same time, he attended evening classes at the School of Drawing and Decorative Arts until 1862. At that time, he attended music lessons with Charles Gounod who noticed this intelligent and talented student.

In 1858 at the age of 17, to earn a living, he painted fans and painted a coat of arms for his brother Henri, a heraldic engraver . In 1862 , Renoir passed the entrance examination at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and entered Charles Gleyre's studio , where he met Claude Monet , Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley . A strong friendship is formed between the four young people who will often paint outdoors in the forest of Fontainebleau.

He exhibited with the Impressionists at the first exhibition of Impressionist painters 1874 and that of 1878 and realizes his masterpiece: the Ball mill Galette in Montmartre , in 1877 . The painting is bought by Gustave Caillebotte , member and patron of the group. This ambitious painting (by its format first, 1.30  m × 1.70  m ) is characteristic of the style and research of the artist during the 1870s: fluid and colorful touch, colored shadows, non-use of the black effects of textures, a play of light filtering through foliage, clouds, taste for scenes of Parisian life, for models of his entourage (friends, people of the "  bohemian  " of Montmartre ). For nudes, he first uses professional models and then young women he meets sometimes in the street and pays by offering them the portrait, flowers or hats fashionable.

From 1890 to 1900, Renoir changed his style again. It is no longer pure impressionism or the style of the Ingresque period, but a mixture of both. It retains the subjects of Ingres but resumes the fluidity of the features. The first work of this period, Les Jeunes filles au piano (1892), was acquired by the French State to be exhibited at the Musée du Luxembourg . In 1894, Renoir is again father of a little Jean and resumes his maternity works. The young woman who takes care of her children, Gabrielle Renard, becomes one of her frequent models.

Renoir is now a major figure in the world of Western art, exhibiting throughout Europe and the United States, participating in the Fall Salons in Paris. The material ease that he acquires does not make him lose the sense of reality and the taste for simple things, he continues to paint in the rustic world of the field of Collettes. He tries new techniques, and in particular devotes himself to sculpture, prompted by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard , even though his hands are deformed by rheumatoid arthritis . His nails penetrating the flesh of his palms, gauze strips talcum protect his hands (from there, the legend of the brush attached to his hand).

Renoir continues, despite everything, to paint until his death in 1919. He would have asked, on his death bed, a canvas and brushes to paint the bouquet of flowers that was on the window sill. By making the last time his brushes to the nurse, he reportedly said: "I think I begin to understand something "

The December 3, 1919 he died in the domain of Collettes in Cagnes-sur-Mer , following a pulmonary congestion, having been able to visit the Louvre Museum for the last time and to review his works from difficult times.

A college-high school bears his name in his hometown, Limoges , another in Cagnes-sur-Mer , where he died. A college is named Auguste and Jean Renoir in La Roche-sur-Yon . A college is named Pierre-Auguste-Renoir in Ferrières-en-Gâtinais . In Asnieres-sur-Seine , the public high school and the nearby college bear his name. A college is named Auguste Renoir in Chatou in the Yvelines. In Angers , a college-high school bears the name Auguste-et-Jean-Renoir. In Paris , a high school of applied arts also bears his name.

    The Renoir House and Workshop in Essoyes in Champagne-Ardenne where he stayed with his family and painted the summer months, between 1888 and 1919 . You can visit the House, the painter's studio and a cultural center dedicated to the Renoir family.

    The Renoir Museum of Cagnes-sur-Mer in the Alpes-Maritimes where he lived and painted from 1907 to 1919

This auction list is strictly indicative  :

    In the roses , 23 million  $ , Sotheby's, May 2003  ;

    Bouquet of tulips , 123 375  € , Christie's France, December 2004 ;

    Women in a Garden ,  $ 12,250,000, Sotheby's, May 2007 ;

    Les Rosiers at Wargemont ,  $ 7,512,000, Sotheby's, November 2004 ;

    The Lodge ,  $ 7,412,000, Sotheby's, February 2008 ;

    The Two Sisters ,  $ 6,850,000, Sotheby's, February 2007 ;

    Portrait of nini , $ 5,500,000  , Sotheby's November 2008  ;

    Young girls with lilac , $ 5,500,000  , Sotheby's May 2004  ;

    Reading , 5,000,000  $ Sotheby's in May 2007 ;

    Landscapes Bords de Seine , estimated 100 000  $ in 2012, it was a stolen painting in 1951, which was returned to the Baltimore museum in 2014.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted for nearly sixty years. A prolific painter, he left us a considerable work, necessarily unequal. There are more than 4,000 paintings in it, more than the works of Manet , Cézanne and Degas combined.