• Original Art: Bed of Anemones by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and handwritten letter from Renoir to Berthe Morisot
• Era: 1892 (letter) and 1901 (painting)
• Region: France

French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) was one of the leading painters of the Impressionist movement, acclaimed for his portraiture, dreamy landscapes and use of vibrant light and saturated colour.

Renoir was born into a family of modest means, and much of his early life was shaped by poverty. When he was a young child his father moved the family from Limoges to Paris in search of more favourable prospects. Renoir showed an early talent for drawing and singing, but the family’s financial difficulties forced him to discontinue his lessons and leave school at the age of 13 to work as an apprentice painter in a porcelain factory. He began taking free drawing classes and in 1862 he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, later joining the studio of Charles Gleyre (1806–1874). Although he sometimes did not have enough money to buy paint, he was fortunate to live close to the Louvre, which he visited often to study the works of the Old Masters.

While studying at École des Beaux-Arts Renoir met fellow artist Claude Monet and the two formed a lasting friendship. In the summer of 1869 the pair began painting together at a small café outside Paris. This was a seminal moment as the two artists simultaneously developed several theories and techniques that would give rise to Impressionism. Renoir went on to create several thousand paintings in his lifetime. His works are some of the most well-known and frequently reproduced in the history of art.

Impressionists were the radicals of the art world, defying the formal rules of academic painting by preferring to spontaneously paint outdoors rather than within the walls of a studio. This “on the spot” style resulted in a greater awareness of colour and light and translated on canvas as rapid and broken brushstrokes that captured the fleeting quality of sunlight.

The Impressionist group, which also included founding member Berthe Morisot, often exhibited together as well as individually. Morisot, known for her swift brushstrokes and pastel-hued tones, was the only woman to join in the Impressionists’ first exhibition in 1874. In 1892 Renoir wrote to Morisot ahead of her first solo exhibition in Paris, and that letter is reproduced here against the lush backdrop of one of Renoir’s later still-life paintings, Bed of Anemones (1901).