Today, 25 February, marks the birthday of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the French painter born in Limoges in 1841. His early life was shaped by financial hardship, and his family’s circumstances meant he had to leave school at thirteen to take up an apprenticeship at a porcelain factory, where he frequently tired of the subject matter and sought refuge in the galleries of the Louvre. He had a real talent for singing, too, good enough that the composer Charles Gounod urged his parents to put him forward for the Opera chorus, although the porcelain factory ultimately won out.
In his adult life, Renoir became one of the central figures of Impressionism, sketching alongside Monet at La Grenouillère on the Seine, where their shared experiments with loose brushwork and the fleeting effects of light and water would define a movement. He lived long enough to make one final visit to the Louvre in 1919, where he saw his own artwork hanging alongside the masters he had spent a lifetime studying. He died later that year, aged 78.
Here are five paintings to celebrate on Renoir’s birthday.
Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876)
Eugène Murer (1877)
Moulin Huet Bay, Guernsey (1883)
The Umbrellas (1881-86)
Girls at the Piano (1892)
