Renoir. 45th Ed.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), with his timelessly charming paintings, continues to reflect our ideals of happiness, love, and beauty. Derived from our large-format volume, the most comprehensive retrospective of his work published to date, this compact edition examines the personal history and motivation behind the legend.

Although he initially began painting landscapes in the Impressionist style, Renoir found his true affinity in portraits, leading him to eventually abandon the Impressionists altogether. Despite often being misunderstood, Renoir remains one of history's most well-loved painters, undoubtedly because his works exude warmth, tenderness, and good spirit.

In an incisive text tracing the artist’s career and stylistic evolution, Gilles Néret illustrates how Renoir reinvented the painted female form. His portrayals of everyday goddesses with their plump contours, rounded hips, and breasts, are iconic. Renoir’s later phase, marked by a return to the simple pleasure of the female nude in his Bathers series, was his most innovative and stylistically influential. This period inspired such masters as Matisse and Picasso.

With a complete chronology, bibliography, photos, sketches, and brilliant reproductions, this is the essential work of reference on this enduring master artist.