Today, paintings by Renoir are found in museums throughout the world. In addition to the unparalleled Philadelphia Barnes Foundation with its 181 Renoir paintings on view and the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, with its 32 Renoirs on view, many major museums throughout the world display Renoirs, including on their websites (see Appendix).13
Renoir was truly the last great painter of the ideal sensuous figure. His forebears were the Pompeian fresco artists, Raphael, Titian, Rubens and Ingres. His art influenced Bonnard, Denis, Maillol, Matisse, Picasso and other twentieth-century artists whose work is permeated with the freedom and joie de vivre of the Impressionists, fused with a classical search for balanced compositions and form that is substantial and monumental.14
On balance, Renoir was a remarkable individual whose life story is heroic and inspiring. Just as his optimistic, joyful art brings happiness to people around the world, the story of his life makes one grateful that there was such a generous person who left the world thousands of works of art to enjoy.
APPENDIX
Selected Renoir Paintings Worldwide
According to the Bernheims’ five-volume catalogue raisonné of Renoir’s work (Dauberville, 2007–14), he created 4,019 paintings, 148 pastels, 382 drawings and 105 watercolours, totalling 4,654 works, which they list and reproduce. Renoir’s most important paintings are on permanent exhibition in museums throughout the world where they can be enjoyed either in person or on each museum’s website.
The largest collection of Renoir’s paintings is in the Barnes Foundation, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 181 Renoir paintings, always on view. The second most numerous collection of Renoirs is the Clark Art Institute, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, with 32 Renoirs, always on view. In addition, in most major galleries across the world, paintings by Renoir are on display. The following key museums own several Renoirs, listed with one of their popular Renoir paintings:
Baltimore, Museum of Art: Washerwomen
Basel, Kunstmuseum: Lise with a Seagull Feather
Berlin, Nationalgalerie: Lise: Summer
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts: Dance at Bougival
Buffalo, NY, Albright-Knox Art Gallery: Mme Thurneyssen and her Daughter
Cagnes-sur-Mer, Musée Renoir ‘Les Collettes’: The Farm at Les Collettes
Cambridge, UK, Fitzwilliam Museum: High Wind
Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum: study for The Large Bathers
Cardiff, Wales, National Museum: The Parisienne
Chicago, Art Institute: Two Sisters (On the Terrace)
Cleveland, OH, Museum of Art: Mlle Romaine Lacaux
Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum: Lise and Sisley
Columbus, OH, Museum of Fine Arts: Mme Henriot impersonating a Boy
Detroit, Institute of Arts: Jean Renoir as the White Pierrot (or The White Clown)
Dresden, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen: Captain Edouard Bernier
Hamburg, Kunsthalle: Riding in the Bois de Boulogne
Hartford, CT, Wadsworth Atheneum: Mme Aline Renoir (with her dog Bob)
Hiroshima Museum of Art: Judgment of Paris
Houston, Museum of Fine Arts: Still Life with Bouquet
Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: Paul Haviland
London, Courtauld Institute: The Loge
National Gallery: The Umbrellas
Tate: Venus Victorious (statue)
Los Angeles, County Museum of Art: Jean Renoir as a Huntsman
Malibu, J. Paul Getty Museum: Albert Cahen d’Anvers
Moscow, Museum of Western Art: Étienne Goujon
Pushkin Museum: Head of the Actress Jeanne Samary
New Haven, CT, Yale University Art Gallery: Mont Ste-Victoire
New York, Frick Collection: La Promenade
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: Woman with Parrot
Metropolitan Museum of Art: Mme Charpentier and her Children
Norfolk, VA, Chrysler Museum of Art: The Daughters of Paul Durand-Ruel
Northampton, Mass., Smith College Museum of Art: Rapha Maître
Omaha, Nebr., Joslyn Art Museum: Piano Lesson
Otterlo, Kroller-Müller Rijksmuseum: At the Café
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada: Claude and Renée
Paris, Musée d’Orsay: Dancing at the Moulin de la Galette
Musée Marmottan: Claude Monet Reading
Musée de l’Orangerie: Coco Renoir: The Clown
Pasadena, CA, Norton Simon Museum: Woman with Yellow Hat
Philadelphia, PA, Museum of Art: The Large Bathers
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art: Garden in the rue Cortot, Montmartre
Portland, OR, Art Museum: The Seine at Argenteuil
Prague, National Gallery: The Lovers
Providence, Rhode Island School of Design: Young Woman reading an Illustrated Journal
Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts: Jean Renoir drawing
St. Louis, Art Museum: The Artist’s Father, Léonard Renoir
St. Petersburg, FL, Museum of Fine Arts: Nursing (or Aline and her Son Pierre)
St Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum: Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary
San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums: Algerian Woman
São Paulo, Museum of Art: Rose and Blue: Mlles Cahen d’Anvers
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum: The Inn of Mother Anthony, Marlotte
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art: Parisians dressed as Algerians
Bridgestone Museum of Art: Mlle Georgette Charpentier
Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario: The Concert
Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum: Bather
Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art: The Oarsmen at Chatou
Phillips Collection: Luncheon of the Boating Party
West Palm Beach, FL, Norton Museum of Art: M. Germain
Winterthur, Switzerland, Collection Oskar Reinhart: Victor Chocquet
NOTES
Many of the previously published letters and reviews cited have been newly translated from the original French sources, which are listed in the Notes and Bibliography. Mistakes in Renoir’s spelling and punctuation have generally been corrected. All dates and locations in the text and notes are as Renoir or other writers gave them. Bracketed dates or locations are inferred from a letter’s content or are deduced from the similarity of the letter to other correspondence. Shortened forms are used in most references; complete information about each source is given in the Bibliography. If a review appears only once, it is cited in full in the Notes and is not in the Bibliography. On names: during Renoir’s lifetime, artists were called by their last names, thus Pierre-Auguste Renoir was called Renoir by his friends and later by his wife and sons. Similarly, his friends were called Monet, Cézanne, etc. Women artists were also called by their last names preceded by a title, e.g. Mlle Morisot and Mlle Cassatt. Women who were not artists, like Renoir’s wife, were called by their first names, e.g. Aline and Gabrielle.
Introduction
1
Jean Renoir, Renoir, My Father, intro. Robert L. Herbert, 2001.
2
Ibid., n.p. [p. v].
3
Ibid., n.p. [pp. xii–xiii].
4
See Ch. 1; Gélineau, Renoir O Pintor da Vida, pp. 223–7; see Bibliography for his other publications.
5
Respectively, White, ‘An analysis of Renoir’s Development from 1877 to 1887’; Impressionism in Perspective; Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters; Impressionists Side by Side; ‘Renoir et Jean, 1894–1919’; ‘Renoir’s Trip to Italy’; ‘The Bathers of 1887 and Renoir’s Anti-Impressionism’; and others.
6
Dauberville and Dauberville, Renoir: catalogue raisonné des tableaux, pastels, dessins et aquarelles, hereafter Dauberville.
7
E.g., my Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters was purchased by 1,254 libraries in 18 different countries across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Australasia and the Far East.
8
Guilla
ume Apollinaire, ‘Dans petits pots…’, Paris-Journal, 23 July 1914, in Apollinaire on Art, p. 425.
9
Many of these letters were published in 1984 in Cassatt, Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters.
10
Such as the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Paris.
11
Pissarro to his son Lucien, Eragny, 23 February 1887, in Correspondance de Camille Pissarro, vol. 2, p. 131.
12
Unpublished, Renoir to Maurice Gangnat, Cagnes, 24 March 1907, private collection.
13
Mme Émile Blanche (Félicie Blanche) to Dr Blanche, Dieppe, c. 20 July 1881, in Blanche, La Pêche aux souvenirs, pp. 444–5.
14
Renoir to Jeanne, Bourbonne-les-Bains, n.d. [August 1908], in Gélineau, Jeanne Tréhot, la fille cachée de Pierre Auguste Renoir, pp. 49–50, 52–3 (repro. of letter).
15
See White, ‘Renoir et Jean, 1894–1919’.
16
Renoir to André, Cagnes, 2 January 1910, in White, Renoir, p. 245.
17
Unpublished, Renoir to artist [Congé?], n.l., 1 February 1896, in Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute.
18
Sacha Guitry, documentary video of Renoir painting, 1915, available on www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHOeN7HXj3k, accessed 1 December 2016.
19
Unpublished, André to Paul Durand-Ruel, Cagnes, 24 December 1917, in Paris, Archives Durand-Ruel.
20
Theo van Rijsselberghe to his wife, Nice, 21 August 1918, in Paris, Librairie Les Argonautes, letter no. 134.
21
Unpublished, Georges Rivière to Renoir, Paris, 21 December 1913, private collection.
22
Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, p. 20.
23
Renoir, ‘L’Art décoratif et contemporain’.
24
Renoir, ‘La Société des Irrégularistes’; see also Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, p. 19.
25
Renoir, ‘Lettre d’Auguste Renoir à Henry Mottez’; see also Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, p. 47.
26
Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, p. 49
27
See e.g. Jean Renoir, Renoir My Father, passim.
28
See Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, pp. xi–xii; further discussion throughout this book. Between my 1984 Renoir book and this 2017 book, I have changed my mind and no longer feel that Renoir should be labelled an ‘anti-Semite’.
29
Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, p. 106.
30
‘Women’s Suffrage’, http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/suffrage/history.htm, accessed 1 December 2016.
31
Julie Manet, Growing Up with the Impressionists, entry of 14 September 1898, p. 145; French edn, Journal, p. 188.
32
See White, Impressionists Side by Side, ‘Morisot and Renoir’, pp. 212–57.
33
Renoir to Durand-Ruel, n.l. [L’Estaque], n.d. [26 February 1882], in Venturi, Les Archives de l’impressionnisme, vol. 1, p. 122.
34
White, Impressionists Side by Side, p. 217.
35
Renoir to [Philippe Burty], Cagnes, 8 April 1888, in White, Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters, p. 202.
36
See Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, pp. xii–xiii.
Chapter 1 1841–77
1
A group portrait, Forty-Three Painters in Gleyre’s Atelier, in Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, pp. 88–9, pl. 1, shows Renoir in profile to the right, fourth row down and third person from left.
2
Kropmanns, ‘Renoir’s Friendships’ in Renoir: Between Bohemia and Bourgeoisie, p. 242.
3
Renoir, Écrits et propos sur l’art, p. 271.
4
Edmond Maître quoted by Blanche to his father, Dr Émile Blanche, Dieppe, 15 August 1882, in Blanche, Pêche aux souvenirs, p. 441.
5
Hugon, ‘Les Aïeux de Renoir et sa maison natale’, p. 454.
6
Different versions of the family’s last name, ‘Renouard’, ‘Reynouard’ and ‘Renoir’, are found in the artist’s rental agreements, school registrations and friends’ letters until he was close to fifty and well known. See Félicie Blanche to her husband, Dr Émile Blanche, Dieppe, 18 September 1879, in Blanche, La Pêche aux souvenirs, pp. 440–41, where it is spelt ‘Renouard’.
7
For a portrait of Renoir’s father see Dauberville, vol. 1, pl. 531. Pierre Renoir sold the portrait to Vollard in 1917 for 12,000 francs. For Léonard see Hugon, ‘Les Aïeux de Renoir’, p. 454.
8
For a portrait of Renoir’s mother see Dauberville, vol. 1, pl. 324.
9
For a portrait of Pierre-Henri see ibid., pl. 533. Renoir painted Marie-Elisa in 1866; ibid., pl. 426. Like her mother, Lisa became a dressmaker. In 1864, she married Charles Leray, an embroidery designer; his brother was a painter who exhibited at the Salon between 1844 and 1879; see Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career: From Artisan to Painter’, pp. 55–6. No known portrait of Victor exists. He became a tailor like his father and married Eugénie Mallet, a dressmaker. Like other French tailors, Victor went to work for a while in St Petersburg, Russia.
10
For the birth certificate see Hugon, ‘Les Aïeux de Renoir’, p. 454.
11
Anne Régnier, his father’s mother, stayed in Limoges with her other children and died on 23 April 1857.
12
Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career’, p. 55. The Paris population in 1841 was 935,261.
13
For the Temple de l’Oratoire see Robert McDonald Parker, ‘Topographical Chronology’, in Bailey, Renoir Landscapes, 1865–1883, p. 269. For the rue de la Bibliothèque see Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, p. 104.
14
Jean Renoir, Renoir, 1962, p. 147; 1981, p. 160.
15
Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809–91) was commissioned to renovate Paris by Emperor Napoleon III. His reforms spanned 1852 until the end of the century. Renoir later, in his writings on art, expressed dislike of the new Paris, which he felt was created more by machines than by craftsmen. See Herbert, Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts, pp. 1–4.
16
Archive cited in Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, p. 272 n. 7.
17
The average daily earnings for a Parisian tailor c. 1850 were 3.6 francs, which was 20 centimes less than the average for Parisian workers. See Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career’, p. 55.
18
Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, p. 106: ‘[Jean] Renoir’s testimony remains valuable, not least in the suggestion that his aunt Blanche, of whom the artist [Renoir] left such a sympathetic portrait, was Jewish.’ See also Bailey, ‘Renoir’s Portrait of his Sister-in-Law’, p. 686.
19
For the English edn see Stephanie Manthey, ‘Chronology’, in Renoir: Between Bohemia and Bourgeoisie, p. 276. [Pierre-Henri Renoir], Collection complète de chiffres et monogrammes, 1863, designed and engraved by H. Renoir, pupil of S. Daniel, engraver, 58 rue Neuve St-Augustin, Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Estampes et de la Photographie; Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career’, p. 72, fig. 14.
20
Bailey, Renoir’s Portraits, p. 272 nn. 7, 12.
21
Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career’, p. 57.
22
Ibid., p. 56. To give some idea of US dollar values during Renoir’s life, 1 franc in 1850 equalled $3.23 in 2013 dollars, in 1860 $2.54, in 1900 $3.03, in 1910 $3.44, in 1914 $2.82 and in 1920 $0.82.
23
Ibid., p. 57.
24
Paintings by Watteau, Fragonard and Boucher were acquired by the Louvre in 1849, 1852 and 1855.
Manthey, ‘Chronology’, p. 276.
25
Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career’, p. 58; for two vases see p. 72, fig. 15.
26
Dauberville, vol. 1, pl. 654. An 1858 drawing was in the collection of Renoir’s nephew Edmond Renoir Jr.
27
Patry, ‘Renoir’s Early Career’, p. 58; for one of the chandeliers and drawings see ibid., figs 17–20.
28
Ibid., p. 61. See also Didot-Bottin, Annuaire-Almanach du commerce, 1859.
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