Renoir's enduring interest in women is explored here through his depictions of various ideals of femininity: the fashionable young ladies of Paris, portraits of society women and friends, women occupied in the home, little girls, mothers, the exotically dressed women inspired by his trips to North Africa.

The great French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) toyed to paint women. He delighted in their physical appearance, both clothed and naked, and they provided him with his most potent source of inspiration, often becoming the focal point of the idyllic, harmonious worlds that he created in his works throughout his long career. Renoir's enduring interest in women is explored here through his depictions of various ideals of femininity: the fashionable young ladies of Paris, portraits of society women and friends, women occupied in the home, little girls, mothers, the exotically dressed women inspired by his trips to North Africa, and the great nudes of his final years.

Taking as its starting point two very different but equally engaging female portraits, which Renoir painted twenty years apart--Madame Henriot en travesti, a portrait of the Parisian actress dressed as a pageboy, and Christine Lerolle Embroidering, showing the daughter of Renoir's friend the painter Henry Lerolle in a scene from her everyday life--Renoir's Women brings to life the major themes of Renoir's captivating pictures of women with enlightening text and over eighty beautiful illustrations, including some Of the most perceptive and intimate portrayals of women ever painted.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FOREWORD

RENOIR AND THE FEMININE IDEAL

An Introduction to Renoir's Women

ANN DUMAS

"CHRISTINE LEROLLE EMBROIDERING"

Between Genre Painting and Portraiture

IOHN COLLINS

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR: CHRONOLOGY

JESSIE TURNER

FURTHER READING

INDEX