I've had the opportunity to see the works of Auguste Renoir many times.
The Philadelphia Museum of art is 30 minutes away and many of his works were once housed by the Barnes Foundation which was formerly near my home. They have moved the foundation sadly to say, into the city.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, France, the child of a working class family. As a boy, he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talents led to him being chosen to paint designs on fine china. He also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorations on fans before he enrolled in art school. During those early years, he often visited the Louvre to study the French master painters.
The Theater Box, 1874 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
In 1862 he began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet. At times during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Although Renoir first started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, recognition did not come for another ten years, due, in part, to the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War.
During the Paris Commune in 1871, while he painted on the banks of the Seine River, some members of a commune group thought he was a spy, and were about to throw him into the river when a commune leader, Raoul Rigault, recognized Renoir as the man who had protected him on an earlier occasion.
To read more please click
link [en.wikipedia.org]








In person these paintings are unbelievable.
I just felt like sharing