A framed painting by Pierre Renoir entitled "Path Leading through Tall Grass".

Pierre Auguste Renoir (25 February 1841 to 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. Pierre Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges, Haute Vienne, France, the child of a working class family. As a boy, he worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talents led to his being chosen to paint designs on fine china. Before he enrolled in art school, he also painted hangings for overseas missionaries and decorations on fans . During those early years, he often visited the Louvre to study the French master painters. After a series of rejections by the Salon juries, Renoir joined forces with Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and several other artists to mount the first Impressionist exhibition in April 1874, in which Renoir displayed six paintings. Although the critical response to the exhibition was largely unfavorable, his work was comparatively well received. That same year, two of his works were shown with Durand Ruel in London. His paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated colour. A prolific artist, he created several thousand paintings. The warm sensuality of his style made his paintings some of the most well known and frequently reproduced works in the history of art.