The dancer

Charles Paul Renouard, born in Cour-Cheverny (Loir-et-Cher) on November 5, 1845 and died in Paris on January 2, 1924, was a French painter and engraver. Born in Cour-Cheverny on November 5, 1845, the sixth child of a modest clog maker, Paul Renouard left his native region in 1859 to earn his living in Paris. He became a house painter and had the opportunity to work at the École des beaux-arts. There he occasionally showed a talent for drawing that he had possessed since his childhood. He was noticed and in 1868 he was admitted to the Beaux-Arts where he entered the studio of Isidore Pils. He helped him in the execution of the interior decorations of the Opéra Garnier and, in 1875, when Pils fell ill, Paul Renouard painted the ceilings of the grand staircase according to the cartoons of his master. He painted dancers, portraits of many personalities of his century: Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau, Sarah Bernhardt and Victorien Sardou, Ambroise Thomas, Alexandre Dumas fils, Émile Bergerat, Ravachol, Michel-Eugène Chevreul, Louis Ménard, Joseph Meissonnier, Camille Saint-Saëns, General Boulanger and all the members of the Institute and the Chamber of Deputies, then Lawrence Alma-Tadema, John Everett Millais, Marshal Kate Booth, Frederic Leighton, Luke Fildes, the nine sketches of Henry Irving as Mephistopheles. Paul Renouard was above all a prolific illustrator working in black and white for the major illustrated newspapers. A regular contributor to L'Illustration, Paris Illustré, Revue Illustrée, and The Graphic, he was famous for his series on English life, the Opéra Garnier, and events such as the 1900 Universal Exposition, the Dreyfus Affair, and the trial of Emile Zola, the Thérèse Humbert and Steinheil affairs, the coronation celebrations of Edward VII, the funeral of Queen Victoria, the celebrations and tournament of the 75th anniversary of Belgian independence and the 1905 World's Fair in Liège, the Franco-Russian celebrations in Compiègne in 1901, the First World War. He marked his time and touched his contemporaries such as Vincent van Gogh who, through his correspondence with his brother Theo, showed great admiration for his work and his talent. Member of the National Society of Fine Arts and the Society of French Artists, Paul Renouard won a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1889 and 1900. He was named Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1893. He was a professor at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs de Paris in 1903. He died in Paris on January 2, 1924 and is buried in the small cemetery of Chambon-sur-Cisse.