Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841 - 1919)

Renoir was born in Limoges in 1841. He was the 6th Child of his parents, his father a tailor, his mother a seamstress. The family moved to Paris where a young Renoir found work as a porcelain painter, which he did for four years. He moved on to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (school of fine arts) in 1862. He studied there and began what would become a lifelong friendship with Monet, Bazille and Sisley, the four of them became significant founding members of the impressionist movement. Renoir is courted for his Portraits, figurative work but mostly his Nudes. Renoir was relentless in his depiction's of nudes and was quoted saying "The nude is one of the indispensable forms of art."