Exhibition: Late Renoir at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

“I think I am beginning to understand something about painting.” Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1919. A remark he apparently made while he covered up his painting for the day, on the day he died.

Towards the end of the 1880s it is said that Pierre-Auguste Renoir became dissatisfied with Impressionism, then still a relatively recent movement in the development of Western art. He began to travel more widely, first within France and then to Algeria, Spain and Italy, where he became influenced by other artists, including Delacroix, Velazquez and Titian. It is widely thought that his work during this time is his most fertile and innovative. And it is his paintings and sculptures from the final decades of his life that make up the Late Renoir exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Renoir and his family moved to the Mediterranean coast, specifically the town of Cagnes-sur-Mer, in the hope that the climate there would help his rheumatoid arthritis. He frequently painted landscapes around the town, including the vineyards at Cagnes, pictured below.

This is just one of about 80 of Renoir’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Also, included in the exhibition are twenty works by other European artists of the day, including Aristide Maillol, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. The inclusion of the art of these painters attests to the influence Renoir had on the younger generations of artists at the time.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, The Vineyards at Cagnes, 1908. Oil on canvas. 45 cm x 59 cm. © Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Colonel and Mrs. E. W. Garbisch.

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The Renoir exhibition is on until 6 September: exhibition website.