Pierre Bonnard

He painted landscapes, urban scenes, portraits and intimate domestic scenes, where the backgrounds, colors and painting style usually took precedence over the subject.

• Name — Pierre Bonnard • Born — 3 October 1867 • Birthplace — Fontenay-aux-Roses, Seine, France • Died — 23 January 1947 • Place of death — La Route de Serra Capeou, Le Cannet, Alpes-Maritimes, France • Field — Painter • Movement — Post-Impressionism, Les Nabis, Intimism

• Illustration — A Barracks Scene by Pierre Bonnard (probably about 1890). His first Nabi painting, a souvenir of his brief military service Pierre Bonnard was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses, Hauts-de-Seine on 3 October 1867. His mother, Élisabeth Mertzdorff, was from Alsace. His father, Eugène Bonnard, was from the Dauphiné, and was a senior official in the French Ministry of War. He had a brother, Charles, and a sister, Andrée, who in 1890 married the composer Claude Terrasse. He received his education at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and Lycée Charlemagne in Vanves. He showed a talent for drawing and watercolors, as well as caricatures. He painted frequently in the gardens of his parents' country home at Le Grand-Lemps near La Côte-Saint-André in the Dauphiné. He also showed a strong interest in literature. He received his baccalaureate in the classics, and, to satisfy his father, between 1886 and 1887 earned his license in law, and began practicing as a lawyer in 1888. While he was studying law, he attended art classes at the Académie Julian in Paris. At the Académie Julian he met his future friends and fellow artists, Paul Sérusier, Maurice Denis, Gabriel Ibels and Paul Ranson. In 1888, Bonnard was accepted by the École des Beaux-Arts, where he met Édouard Vuillard and Ker Xavier Roussel. He also sold his first commercial work of art, a design for a poster for France-Champagne, which helped him convince his family that he could make a living as an artist. His first studio was on the rue Lechapelais. In 1889–1890, Bonnard performed military service as a soldat de deuxième classe in the 52nd Infantry Regiment.

• Illustration — Pierre Bonnard, Self-portrait, c. 1889 From 1893 until her death, Bonnard lived with Marthe de Méligny (1869–1942), and she was the model for many of his paintings, including many nudes. Her birth name was Maria Boursin, but she had changed it before she met Bonnard. They married in 1925. In the years before their marriage, Bonnard had love affairs with two other women, who also served as models for some of his paintings: Renée Monchaty (the partner of the American painter Harry Lachmann) and Lucienne Dupuy de Frenelle, the wife of a doctor. It has been suggested that Bonnard may have been the father of Lucienne's second son. Renée Monchaty committed suicide shortly after Bonnard and de Méligny married.

Although Bonnard had received his license to practice law in 1888, he failed in the examination for entering the official registry of lawyers. After the summer holidays, he joined with his friends from the Academy Julian to form Les Nabis, an informal group of artists with different styles and philosophies but common artistic ambitions. Bonnard was then entirely unaware of the Impressionist painters, or of Gauguin and other new painters. His friend Paul Sérusier showed him a painting on a wooden cigar box he made after visiting Paul Gauguin at Pont-Aven, using patches of pure color in the style of Gauguin. In 1890, Maurice Denis, at age twenty, formalized the doctrine in which a painting was considered "a surface plane covered with colors assembled in a certain order". Some of the Nabis had highly religious, philosophical or mystical approaches to their paintings, but Bonnard remained more cheerful and unaffiliated. The painter-writer Aurelien Lugné-Poe, who shared a studio at 28 rue Pigalle with Bonnard and Vuillard, later wrote: "Pierre Bonnard was the humorist among us; his nonchalant gaiety, and humor expressed in his productions, of which the decorative spirit always preserved a sort of satire, from which he later departed." In 1891, Bonnard met Toulouse-Lautrec and, in December 1891, showed his work at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. In the same year, Bonnard also began an association with La Revue Blanche, for which he and Édouard Vuillard designed a frontispiece. In March 1891, his work was displayed with the work of the other Nabis at the gallery Le Barc de Boutteville.

The style of Japanese graphic arts became an important influence on Bonnard. In 1893, a major exposition of works of Utamaro and Hiroshige was held at the Durand-Ruel Gallery, and the Japanese influence, particularly the use of multiple points of view, and the use of bold geometric patterns in clothing, such as checkered blouses, began to appear in his work. Because of his passion for Japanese art, his nickname among the Nabis became Le Nabi le trés japonard. • Illustration — Nannies’ Promenade, decorative screen showing a procession of carriages with nurses and children (1897), National Gallery of Victoria. As in Japanese screens, the action is read from right to left. Japanese art played an important part in Bonnard's work. He was first able to see the works of Japanese artists via the Paris gallery of Siegfried Bing. Bing brought works by Hokusai and other Japanese print makers to France, and from May 1888 through April 1891 published a monthly art journal, Le Japon Artistique, which included color illustrations in 1891. In 1890, Bing organized an important exhibition of seven hundred prints he had brought from Japan, and made a donation of Japanese art to the Louvre. Bonnard used the model of Japanese kakemono scroll art—long, vertical panels—in his series of paintings Women in the garden (1890–91), now in the Museé d'Orsay. Originally designed to appear together as a single screen, Bonnard decided to display Women in the garden as four separate decorative panels. The female forms are reduced to flat silhouettes, and there is no rendering of depth in the picture. The faces are turned away from the viewer and the pictures are entirely dominated by the colors and bold patterns of the costumes and the backgrounds. The models are his sister Andreé and his cousin Berthe Schaedin. Bonnard often pictured women in checkered blouses, a design he said he had discovered in Japanese prints. He devoted an increasing amount of attention to decorative art, designing furniture, fabrics, fans and other objects. He continued to design posters for France-Champagne, which gained him an audience outside the art world. In 1892, he began creating lithographs, and painted Le Corsage a carreaux and La Partie de croquet. He also made a series of illustrations for the music books of his brother-in-law, Claude Terrasse. In 1894, he turned in a new direction and made a series of paintings of scenes of the life of Paris. In his urban scenes, the buildings and even animals were the focus of attention; faces were rarely visible. He also made his first portrait of his future wife, Marthe, whom he married in 1925. In 1895, he became an early participant of the movement of Art Nouveau, designing a stained glass window, called Maternity, for Tiffany. In 1895, he had his first individual exposition of paintings, posters and lithographs at the Durand-Ruel Gallery. He also illustrated a novel, Marie, by Peter Nansen, published in series by in La Revue Blanche. The following year he participated in a group exposition of Nabis at the Amboise Vollard Gallery. In 1899, he took part in another major exposition of works of the Nabis. • Illustration — Women with a Dog (1891), Clark Art Institute. The checked blouse was inspired by Japanese prints. • Illustration — Checkered Blouse (1892), a portrait of his sister Andrée Terrasse, with her cat • Illustration — The Parade (1892), one of several colorful paintings of Paris street performers • Illustration — Two Dogs in a Deserted Street (1894), oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art • Illustration — The Omnibus (1895) • Illustration — Dancers (1896)

Throughout the early 20th century, as new artistic movements emerged, Bonnard kept refining and revising his personal style, and exploring new subjects and media, but keeping constant the characteristics of his work. Working in his studio at 65 rue de Douai in Paris, he presented paintings at the Salon des Independents in 1900, and also produced 109 lithographs for Parallèment, a book of poems by Paul Verlaine. He also took part in an exhibition with the other Nabis at the Bernheim Jeaune gallery. He presented nine paintings at the Salon des Independents in 1901. In 1905, he produced a series of nudes and of portraits, and in 1906 had a personal exposition at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery. In 1908, he illustrated a book of poetry by Octave Mirbeau, and made his first long stay in the South of France, at the home of the painter Manguin in Saint-Tropez. in 1909 and, in 1911, began a series of decorative panels, called Méditerranée, for the Russian art patron Ivan Morozov. In June 1910 he painted a view of St. Valery-sur-Somme, showing a boat moored in high tide as well an image of the Chemin-de-fer. During the years of the First World War, Bonnard concentrated on nudes and portraits, and in 1920 completed a series of large compositions, including La Pastorale, Méditterranée, La Paradis Terreste and Paysage de Ville. His reputation in the French art establishment was secure; in 1918 he was selected, along with Renoir, as an honorary President of the Association of Young French Artists. In the 1920s, he produced illustrations for a book by Andre Gide (1924) and another by Claude Anet (1923). He showed works at the Autumn Salon in 1923, and in 1924 was honored with a retrospective of sixty-eight of his works at the Galerie Druet. In 1925, he purchased a villa in Cannes. • Illustration — Siesta (1900), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne • Illustration — Nude Against the Light (1908), Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels • Illustration — Portrait of Misia Godebska (1908), Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid • Illustration — A Boat moored at High Tide, St. Valery-sur-Somme (1910), private collection • Illustration — Morning in Paris (1912), Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg • Illustration — The Dessert (1921), Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, U.S. • Illustration — Vernonnet - Paysage près de Giverny (1922), Aberdeen Art Gallery • Illustration — Jeunes femmes dans la rue (1922), private collection • Illustration — Fruit Bowl on a Table (1934), Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art • Illustration — Nu ë la chaise (1935-1938), Museo Botero, Bogotá

In 1938, Bonnard and Vuillard's works were featured at an exposition at the Art Institute of Chicago. The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 forced Bonnard to depart Paris for the south of France, where he remained until the end of the war. Under the German occupation, he refused to paint an official portrait of French collaborationist leader Marechal Petain, but accepted a commission to paint a religious painting of Saint Francis de Sales, with the face of his friend Vuillard, who had died two years earlier. In 1947 he finished his last painting, The Almond Tree in Blossom, a week before his death in his cottage on La Route de Serra Capeou near Le Cannet, on the French Riviera. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City organized a posthumous retrospective of Bonnard's work in 1948, although originally it was meant to be a celebration of the artist's 80th birthday. • Illustration — Nude in the Bath and Small Dog, (c. 1941–1946) Carnegie Museum of Art • Illustration — Last self-portrait (1945) Bemberg Fondation • Illustration — Stairs with Mimosa (1946)

Bonnard wrote, "Notre génération a toujours cherché les rapports de l'art avec la vie" (Our generation always was searching for connections between art and life). Bonnard and the other Nabis were particularly interested in integrating their art into popular forms, such as posters, journal covers and illustrations, and engravings in books, as well as into ordinary household decoration, in the form of murals, painted screens, textiles, tapestries, furniture, glass and dishes. At the beginning of his career, Bonnard designed posters for a French champagne firm, for which he gained public attention. He later produced many sets of engravings illustrating the works of the avant-garde authors of his time. • Illustration — Poster for France-Champagne by Pierre Bonnard (1891), which made him known outside the art world • Illustration — Poster for the review Blanche, Metropolitan Museum also published in Les Maîtres de l'Affiche • Illustration — Les Parisiens, lithograph (1893) • Illustration — Illustration for a music textbook written by his brother-in-law, composer Claude Terrasse (1893)

Bonnard's work is in many museum collections, especially in France, also including the following American ones: • Art Institute of Chicago • Baltimore Museum of Art • Cleveland Museum of Art • Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco • Los Angeles County Museum of Art • Metropolitan Museum of Art • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston • Museum of Modern Art • National Gallery of Art • The Phillips Collection