"Translations from the French by John Shepley, with Claude Choquet"--Title page verso

Includes bibliographical references (pages 302-304) and index.

During the seventy-eight years of his life, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted thousands of paintings and made uncounted drawings, watercolors, and sketches. Behind this prodigious output is a lifetime of struggle and anguish seldom hinted at in the work of this "happy painter." Barbara Ehrlich White has devoted more than twenty years to searching out unpublished letters and documents that reveal his life as an artist and as a man. She brilliantly contrasts the story of his personal battle against crippling arthritis -- as well as his loss of favor with old patrons dissatisfied when he developed a new style -- with the joyous gratification of the senses that flows from his canvases. But she also contrasts the underlying traditionalism of his training with his audacious breakthrough in style, subject, and technique. Never before have we been so close to the contradictory aspects of this genius. -- From publisher's description

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