Gabrielle Renard
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Gabrielle Renard, (August 1, 1878 - February 26, 1959), was a French artist's model and a nanny who was an important part of the family of painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Born in Essoyes in the Aube, departement of France, she was a cousin of Aline Charigot who married the painter, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. At age 16, Gabrielle Renard moved to Montmartre to work as a nanny in the Renoir household where the second of the Renoirs' three sons had just been born. She became an integral member of the family and was responsible for Jean Renoir becoming involved in the film industry. As well, Renard would be the subject of a number of Renoir's portraits, many with her and the children.
Gabrielle Renard developed a strong bond with the infant Jean Renoir that would last throughout their lives. Fascinated by the new motion picture invention, Jean Renoir was only a few years old when Gabrielle took him to see his first film. When the family moved to a farm at Cagnes-sur-Mer near the Mediterranean coast, Gabrielle moved with them. During the final years of Renoir's life he suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis but continued to paint with her help. Working in the studio at "Les Collettes," Gabrielle had to push the paint brush between his crippled fingers.
The devoted Gabrielle Renard did not marry until 1921 when the children were grown. Her husband, Conrad Hensler Slade (1871-1949), with whom she had a son, Jean Slade, was an aspiring painter from a wealthy American family. Following the occupation of France by the Germans in World War II, she and her family moved to the United States. Jean Renoir, then a successful film director, also moved to Hollywood during the War and when Gabrielle's husband died in 1955, she moved to Beverly Hills to be near him.
Gabrielle Renard-Slade died at her home in Beverly Hills in 1959. In his memoirs, My Life and My Films, Jean Renoir begins and ends the book with Gabrielle Renard, and, along the way, he recounts the profound influence she had in his life.
