Renoir embarked on his painting career as a student in the Parisian studio of Charles Gleyre and at the École des Beaux-Arts. The compositions of his early paintings demonstrate the influence of the Barbizon school and the practice of plein air landscape painting in the Fontainebleau forest, while the subdued color scheme and use of stark lighting recalls the palette of realist painter Gustave Courbet. After these early essays in style and technique, Renoir flourished as in Impressionist artist. In the 1870s his palette became lighter and included an expanded range of color. Renoir’s brush stroke also became increasingly sketchy and soft, so that shapes and volumes are defined by light and touches of color rather than by contour line. Around 1880, Renoir rejected Impressionism and began to exhibit in the academic exhibition space of the Paris Salon.  Even while Renoir’s paintings made after this point demonstrate a concern with academic techniques discarded by Impressionist painters — for example, more highly structured canvases and greater use of preparatory sketches — Renoir maintained his fascination with the effects of light and pure color.

One of Renoir’s charcoal drawings, Standing Woman with Basket, is located in the Bell Gallery collection.  The subject of the drawing, an attractive young working class woman, is a feature of many of Renoir’s works, which depict the boulevards, parks and leisure attractions in and around Paris. Although Renoir considered many of his later drawings to be works of art in their own right, several characteristics indicate that the Bell Gallery drawing may have been executed as a study for a painting. In this work, Renoir focuses on the figures’ pose: he adjusts the position of her right hand on her hip, re-works the hand by the empty basket, and frets over the contours of her jacket. To work out these elements, Renoir ignores fine details leaving her facial expression — tired at best — difficult to read. In fact, this drawing relates to the figure at the left of a painting entitled, The Umbrellas (1881–86), now in the National Gallery, London. While the costume and hairstyle of the woman were updated in the painting, the pose, the tired weight of the shoulders, and the shape of her face are unmistakably similar.

The Renoir drawing was given to the Bell Gallery by Mary Elizabeth Sharpe.