\b0 Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges in 1841 and spent his childhood in Paris. From his adoles
cence, he devoted his time to drawing and painting. Influenced by Courbet, he then moved toward\b \cf4 \ATXht329 \ATXul1024 Monet\b0 \ATXul0 \cf0 \ATXht0 and Sisley and carried on with his research into light. Becoming a fashionable portrait painter of
the Parisian bourgeoisie, he stopped exhibiting with his impressionist friends for fear of compromising his success. Yet he never abandoned his taste for less middle-class subjects and his painting continued to evolve. Subject to periodic spells of doub
t and discouragement, the palette he used underwent various changes (first his so-called ôcrude mannerö and then ôpearly periodö) before red became the predominant color in his work during the final period of his life, after he moved to Cagnes-sur-mer (w
here he lived from 1903 up to his death in 1919).\par