Renoir Chronology

  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir born on February 25 in Limoges, France. Renoir's father Leonard was a tailor. Renoir had five brothers.

  • Self Portrait

    Self Portrait, 1875. Oil on Canvas, 39.1 x 31.7 cm. Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA.

  • The Renoir family moves to Paris.

  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir quits school, becomes an apprentice with a porcelain-painting company, Lévy Frères.

  • Renoir apprentices with a M. Gilbert, who paints blinds, which are used in religious mission headquarters.

  • Renoir starts copying paintings in the Louvre.

  • Renoir passes his exams to enter the École des Beaux-Arts. Renoir joins the independent studio of Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (1806-1874) where he meets Sisley, Monet, and Bazille.

  • Bazille 1867

    Bazille 1867 Oil on Canvas. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • A Renoir painting is accepted for exhibition at the Salon de Paris, but Renoir destroys it after it is shown.

  • Two paintings submitted by Renoir to the Salon de Paris are accepted for exhibition. Renoir starts painting in the Fontainebleau forest.

  • Renoir's Diana (oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC) and Women in the Garden (oil on canvas, private collection) rejected by the Salon de Paris.

  • Diana the Huntress

    Diana the Huntress, 1867. Oil on Canvas, 197 x 132 cm. National Gallery of Art, DC.

  • Salon de Paris accepts Renoir's Portrait of Lise (painted in 1867; oil on canvas, 184 x 185 cm; Essen Folkwang Museum, Germany). The subject was Lise Tréhot, Renoir's favorite model from 1865 to 1872.

  • Portrait of Lise

    Portrait of Lise, 1867. Oil on Canvas. Folkwang Museum, Essen, Germany.

  • Renoir shows two paintings at the Salon de Paris: Odalisque and Bather with a Griffon Dog. Also, Renoir serves in the Franco-Prussian War, having enlisted in the 10th Chasseurs.

  • Renoir meets influential art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922) who buys Renoir's painting The Pont des Arts. Renoir paints with Claude Monet and helps to organize the first Impressionist Exhibition of 1874.

  • Jeanne Durand-Ruel

    Jeanne Durand-Ruel, 1876. Oil on Canvas, 113 x 74 cm. The Barnes Foundation, PA.

  • Renoir paints La Loge (oil on canvas, 80 x 63 cm, Courtauld Collection, London, U.K.). La Loge exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibit, Galerie Nader, Paris, 15 April – May 1974 and the Ninth Exhibition of the Society of French Artists, London, November 1874.

  • La Loge

    La Loge (Theater Box), 1874. Oil on Canvas, 80 x 63.5 cm. Courtauld Institute of Art.

  • At Hôtel Drouot in Paris, Renoir sells ten of his paintings and meets Georges Charpentier. Charpentier's gallery in Paris was one of the most important in promoting and selling works by Impressionists. The gallery was founded in 1802 and disbanded in 1970. Through Charpentier, Renoir acquires one of the versions of the picture Bathers, 1874-5 by Paul Cézanne.

  • Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise

    Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (The Rowers' Lunch), 1875. Oil on Canvas, 55.1 x 65.9 cm. Art Institute of Chicago.

  • Renoir exhibits his painting of Madame Charpentier and her children at the Salon de Paris. Renoir meets Paul Bérard and spends many weekends at the Bérard estate in Wargemont.

  • Mme Charpentier

    Mme Charpentier, 1876-7. Oil on Canvas, 46.5 x 38 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • Meets Aline Charigot, whom he later marries. She was a dressmaker, born on May 23, 1854 (twenty years younger than Renoir). Her father was a wine grower in the Champagne region.

  • Studies of Pierre Renoir; His Mother, Aline Charigot; Nudes; and Landscape

    Studies of Pierre Renoir; His Mother, Aline Charigot; Nudes; and Landscape, 1885/86. Oil on Canvas, 46.1 x 39.2 cm. Art Institute of Chicago.

  • Paints Luncheon of the Boating Party (oil on canvas, 130 x 173 cm, Phillips Collection, Washington, DC). It depicts his fiancée Aline Charigot and many of his circle at the Restaurant Fournaise.

  • Renoir's first journey to Algeria. Renoir also visits Rome, Venice, Naples, Florence, Capri, Pompeii, and other sites on the Italian peninsula.

  • Renoir paints Richard Wagner's portrait at Palmero, Italy. In the same year he visits Cézanne at L'Estaque. Renoir becomes ill with pneumonia. Travels to Algeria again when he recovers.

  • Luncheon of the Boating Party

    Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-1881. Oil on Canvas, 129.9 x 172.7 cm. The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC.

  • Renoir tours the parts of France he had never seen before. With Claude Monet, Renoir travels to Côte d'Azur. Alone, Renoir visits the Ilse of Jersey. Renoir later writes to Ambroise Vollard about this period: "About 1883 a kind of break occurred in my work. I had gone to the end of impressionism and I was reaching the conclusion that I didn't know how either to paint or draw. In a word, I was at a dead end."

  • Dance in the Country

    Dance in the Country, 1883. Oil on Canvas, 180 x 90 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • Paints Dance in the City (oil on canvas, 180 x 90 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris), depicting Suzanne Valadon, herself a painter, with Renoir's friend Paul Lhôte.

  • Dance in the City

    Dance in the City, 1883. Oil on Canvas, 180 x 90 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • Pierre, Renoir's first son is born.

  • Maternity

    Maternity, 1885. Oil on Canvas, 72 x 91 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • Finishes painting The Umbrellas (oil on canvas, 180 x 115 cm, National Gallery, London, U.K.), which was begun in 1880. Renoir says his later technique in the picture was influenced by his study of Ingres and Raphael.

  • Renoir diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis.

  • Renoir marries Aline Charigot. She bore him three children and frequently modeled for him, important examples being: Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881, Phillips, Washington, D.C); Dance in the Country (1883, Musée d'Orsay, Paris).

  • Renoir's painting At the Piano bought by the government of France.

  • Young Girls at the Piano

    Young Girls at the Piano, 1892. Oil on Canvas, 116 x 90 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • Birth of Renoir's second son, Jean.

  • The Artist's Family

    The Artist's Family, 1896. Oil in Canvas, 172.7 x 137.2 cm. The Barnes Foundation, PA.

  • French government awards Renoir the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.

  • Renoir exhibits at Bernheim-Jeune in Paris, March 15-31 along with Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, and Cézanne.

  • Portrait of Cézanne

    Portrait of Cézanne, 1902. Lithograph on ivory paper, 23 x 23.5 cm. Art Institute of Chicago.

  • Birth of Claude (CoCo) Renoir.

  • Renoir's arthritis worsens, essentially crippling him.

  • Maurice Gangnat, steel magnate, buys twelve Renoir paintings. Renoir moves to "Les Collettes" at Cagnes-sur-Mer, 15 km west of Nice.

  • Landscape. Near Cagnes

    Landscape. Near Cagnes, 1907-19. Oil on Canvas, 46.67 x 55.88 cm. Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester.

  • Renoir paints the portrait of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard (oil on canvas, 81.6 x 65.2 cm, Courtauld Collection, London, U.K.). The portrait of Vollard is exhibited at Durand-Ruel in Paris in June of 1912.

  • To visit his friends and patrons, Austrian noble family, the Thurneyssens, Renoir travels to Munich.

  • In October, a significant art dealer Paul Cassirer exhibits eleven works by Renoir at the Fiftieth Anniversary exhibition in Berlin.
    In December, Dr Albert Barnes, an American collector, buys his first Renoir from Ambroise Vollard. Barnes ultimately amassed 180 works by Renoir by the end of the World War II (1945).

  • Conversation

    Conversation, 1912. Oil on Canvas, 54.2 x 65.2 cm. National Museum Wales.

  • Aline, Renoir's wife dies on June 15.
    Henri Matisse visits Renoir's studio in Côte d'Azur and says of Renoir's oeuvre that these are "the loveliest nudes ever painted…Time holds no nobler story, no more heroic, no more magnificent achievement than that of Renoir."

  • Large Nude

    Large Nude, 1907. Oil on Canvas, 1550 x 700 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

  • Renoir paints a portrait of the steel multi-millionaire Maurice Gangnat (1856-1924). By this time, Gangnat owned 180 paintings by Renoir. Only four were sold at the sale of Gangnat's estate on 25 June 1925 at Hôtel Drouot.

  • Portrait of Maurice Gangnat

    Portrait of Maurice Gangnat, c. 1916. Oil on Canvas, 30.5 x 46 cm. Private collection.

  • Renoir paints Woman tying her shoe (oil on canvas, 50.5 x 56.5 cm, Courtauld Collection, London, U.K.). The picture is first exhibited at Galerie Barbazanes, Paris, June 1922.

  • On December 3, Renoir dies at "Les Collettes".