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In 1889, Bonnard won a competition to design a poster advertising French champagne. Revolutionary in its manner this poster greatly influenced Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), whose famous posters of the end of the 19th century were created in the same innovative style.
After failing his civil service examination and a six-month military service, which followed, Bonnard rented his first studio with his father's consent. Bonnard exhibited paintings at the Salon des Indépendants from 1891. In the autumn of the same year he took part in the first exhibition of the Nabis in the Gallery of Le Barc de Boutteville. He worked much in all directions; apart from paintings, Bonnard designed furniture and textile patterns, painted screens and stage sets and made puppets for puppet shows, illustrated books. His friends nicknamed him ‘a highly Nipponized Nabi’, because his individual style at that time developed under a strong influence of Japanese prints.
In 1893, he met 16-year-old Marthe de Méligny, of whose real name of Maria Boursin Bonnard was not aware of until they got married 32 years later. From their meeting a large part of his art revolved around her. His paintings of the late 1890s are very personal and intimate, e.g. Indolence (1899), Man and Woman (1900).
From 1900, the artist started spending more and more time out of Paris, in the countryside between Paris and Normandy. His numerous landscapes of the period are influenced both by the Impressionists and Gauguin. From 1906, Bonnard began to have annual one-man exhibitions, the Bernheim-Jeune art-dealing firm signed an exclusive contract for the exhibition of his works. While his compositions and brushwork remained 'traditionally Impressionistic', close to Degas', he gradually developed his own style, enriching the Impressionist color palette.
The newest artistic developments in Paris did not interest Bonnard. Fauve painting, Cubism, and other 'isms' had no influence on him. The best known of his works of the period are panels commissioned by Misia Godebska in Paris (1910) and the triptych The Mediterranean done for the Moscow residence of Ivan Morozov in 1911.
During the years before the First World War he traveled much in Europe and North Africa, (Spain, Belgium, Holland, England, Italy, Germany, Algeria and Tunisia) but it's difficult to find any impact of these travels in his art. During the war he exhibited little. And again, apart from several war-themed sketches, there is no trace of this colossal conflict in his works. It seems he painted from his happy childhood, his art is personal and intimate and the 20th century is absent. The tranquility of his painted world is not disturbed by the events of real life.
In 1918 he was made the honorary president of a society of young
French
painters.
In 1926 Bonnard bought a house named 'Le Bosquet' at Le Cannet on the
Côte d'Azur. The house remained his main place of residence and
work
until his death. The same year, 1926 year, he visited the USA.
His works of the 1920s and 1930s were called "meditative masterpieces"
by some critics.
In 1937 he was honored with the responsibility of decorating the French pavilion at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. According to his own opinion he failed to create something worthy on the large surface.
In his old age, Bonnard returned to the youthful exuberance of
dazzling
light and color, producing compositions of exquisite taste. During the
Second World War he lived in Le Bosquet, and continued living there as
a recluse after his wife’s death in 1942. In 1945, he paid his last
visit
to Paris. On January 23, 1947 Bonnard died.
Misia Godebska (1872-1950), the daughter
of the Polish emigrant sculptor Cyprien Godebski, initially performed
as
a pianist. After marrying Thadée Natanson, the editor of La
Revue
blanche, she hosted a literary-artistic salon – Mallarmé,
Debussy,
Renoir, as well as young Nabi painters such as Vuillard, Félix
Vallotton
and Bonnard were among her guests. After Natanson was almost bankrupt,
the newspaper magnate Alfred Edwards saved him, on condition that he
surrender
his wife. Misia's third marriage was with the Spanish painter
José
Maria Sert (1876-1945).
See: Pierre Bonnard. Misia.
Pierre
Bonnard. Misia.
Félix Vallotton. Misia
at Her Dressing Table/Misia à sa coiffeuse.
Claude Terrasse (1867-1923), French
composer,
author of comic operas, such as Work of Hercule (1901), The Lord de
Vergy
(1903) and Mister of Train (1904). He was married to Bonnard's sister
Andrée.
The picture is also known as The Bourgeois Afternoon.
See: Pierre Bonnard. The Terrasse Family.
Ambroise Vollard (1867 Saint Denis
(Réunion)
– 1939 Paris), son of a notary, he was one of the most important art
dealers
in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century. He arrived in Paris as a
law student. After receiving his doctorate, he devoted himself to his
hobby,
art. In 1893, he opened his own gallery with an exhibition of sketches
by Manet. In 1895 he organized the first exhibition of Cézanne.
He also sold pictures by Renoir, Degas and Pissarro.
As the most important art dealer for the avant-garde, he organized
the exhibitions of works by Van Gogh, Picasso (1901) and Matisse
(1904);
he also took interest in the works of the Nabis, the Fauves and the
Cubists.
He helped to shape the careers of many artists.
As publisher, he printed lithographs and books illustrated by artists,
published monographs on Cézanne, Degas and Renoir and, in 1937,
his "Memoirs of an Art Dealer".
See: Pierre Bonnard. Ambroise Vollard.
Pablo Picasso. Portrait
of Ambroise Vollard.
Bibliography:
Impressionism. Taschen 1997.
Bibliography:
Pierre Bonnard. By N.V. Yavorsky. Moscow. 1972.
French Painting from the Hermitage, Leningrad. Mid-19th to early
20th century. Aurora. Leningrad. 1975.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Iskusstvo. 1999.
Pierre
Bonnard: Observing Nature by Pierre Bonnard, Gloria Groom
(Contributor),
Ursula Perucchi-Petri (Contributor), Belinda Thomson, Jorg Zutter
(Editor).
National Gallery of Australia, 2003
Bonnard:
Shimmering Color by Antoine Terrasse (Author), Laurel
Hirsch.
Harry N. Abrams, 2000.
Bonnard
by Nicholas Watkins (Author). Phaidon Press Inc., 1996.
Interpreting
Bonnard: Color and Light by Nicholas Watkins. Stewart,
Tabori
& Chang, 1998.