Introduction

A few days ago, I got a chance to check out something in my home town I knew existed but had never seen in person.

A genuine sculpture by impressionist artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

The piece is called La Grande Laveuse. It is currently located in downtown Fresno California at "Renoir Corner" which is at the intersection of Fulton and Mariposa streets.

The Sculpture

To give you a little bit of the history I'll just quote the Downtown Fresno website's description:

La Grande Laveuse (Washer Woman) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) and Richard Guino (1890-1973) is located on the Mariposa Mall section of Fulton.
...
towards the end of Renoir's life, he was stricken with rheumatoid arthritis, which limited his ability to use a brush. Undeterred, he continued to pursue his artistic vision and turned to sculpture, directing his assistant, the sculptor Richard Guino to work the small terra-cotta clay figure of a crouching washerwoman at his direction. Under Renoir's supervision, Guino sculpted a large-scale plaster version of the subject with subtle variations made in the hands and forearms. The reworked plaster cast was subsequently cast in bronze. The figure personifies Water, an element that Renoir had long associated with women in countless paintings.
...
Fresno's La Grande Laveuse is one of only six original bronze castings of this work that exist in the world. The other five can be found at Fontvieille Park, Monaco; the Tate Gallery in London; the Philadelphia Art Museum and Washington University in St. Louis. Fresno's Washer Woman is the only one of the six that visitors are allowed to touch.

The sculpture is located in an area of Fresno that used to be a pedestrian mall, that has since been returned to thru traffic for automobiles. The side walks are wide with other various art pieces that were original to the construction of the mall in the mid 60's.

I took a few photographs and as you might notice people have left a cup of water and a few flowers at the sculpture. I don't know if the flowers were in the water cup to begin with or not. That's something we are all going to have to ponder.

Photos

Conclusion

If you have made it this far, I thank you for checking out my outing at Renoir Corner.

Dudueontheweb

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