"In this elegant readable monograph, noted art historian Anne Distel offers an illuminating new account of the life of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). She deftly narrates Renoir's rise from apprentice porcelain painter to celebrated artist, quoting judiciously from the painter's own vivid letters from reviews by contemporary critics. In addition, she offers keen analyses of Renoir's style at each stage of his sixty-year career. And Distel does not consider that career in isolation, but uses the latest discoveries in the documentary evidence - some of them her own - to re-create the artistic and social milieus in which Renoir worked. She traces his relationships with other artists, both Manet and his fellow Impressionists and older contemporaries like Corot, Diaz, Courbet and Daubigny, as well as the younger Bonnard, Matisse, and Picasso; with writers like Zola, Mallarme, and Mirbeau; with his dealers, like Paul Durand-Ruel, Ambroise Vollard and the Bernheim brothers; and not least, with the patrons who were so important to his career, like the Charpentiers, the Berards, Charles Ephrussi, Maurice Gangnat and Dr. Barnes." "Distel's insightful text is illustrated throughout with some three hundred splendid color reproductions of the artist's finest and most representative works plus important archival photographs. This is the definitive monograph on one of the world's best-loved artists."--BOOK JACKET.