Dita Amory Knihy

Vallotton’s vivid and sometimes unsettling paintings and woodcuts positioned him as a key commentator on the social mores of fin-de-siècle Paris. By the late 19th century, Paris had become the capital of the Western art world, with Impressionism transforming visual arts and post-impressionism flourishing. The city’s modernization, marked by new boulevards and parks, created a vibrant atmosphere for entertainment and consumption, and artists were seen as the avant-garde of society. At 16, Félix Vallotton joined the Nabis, a group that included Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. He embraced their decorative style while also drawing inspiration from journalistic illustration and Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Vallotton's works provided witty yet unsettling insights into domestic and political life, establishing him as one of the greatest printmakers of his time. His later style, characterized by sharp realism and cool linearity, made him a distinctive figure in early 20th-century art. This book, richly illustrated with Vallotton’s finest works, accompanies a new exhibition in New York and London, featuring pieces never before seen in public. It aims to reevaluate his legacy, with texts from leading authorities exploring his life and impact. Born in Lausanne, Vallotton spent much of his career in France, where his innovative approach continued to evolve throughout his life.

Working in his villa in the south of France, Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947) suffused his late canvases with radiant Mediterranean light and dazzling color. Although his subjects were close at hand—usually everyday domestic scenes—Bonnard rarely painted from life. Instead, he made pencil sketches in diaries and relied on these, along with his memory, as he executed the works in his studio. These interiors thus often conflate details from the artist’s daily life with fleeting, mysterious evocations of his past. The spectral figures who appear at the margins of the canvases, overshadowed by brilliantly colored baskets of fruit or other props, create an atmosphere of profound ambiguity and puzzling abstraction: the mundane rendered in a wholly new pictorial language. The 75 paintings, drawings, and watercolors in this volume, some rarely seen treasures from private collections, all made between 1923 and 1947, are central to the ongoing reappraisal of Bonnard as a leading figure of French modernism.

In this beautifully illustrated book, the forty year friendship between Henri Matisse and Pierre Bonnard becomes a platform for new perspectives on the development of the European avant-garde. "Long live painting!" With this rallying cry, Henri Matisse, greeted his colleague Pierre Bonnard on a 1925 postcard from Amsterdam. Widely considered two of the greatest painters of French modernism, they were united by a forty-year-long friendship and a keen appreciation of each other’s work. This catalogue offers fascinating insights into their artistic dialogue. Focusing throughout on their creative exchanges, it highlights their respective contributions to the development of modern art, from the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of the Second World War. Comprising over 100 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints, the book makes palpable the many intersections between their artistic visions, and investigates their shared interest in subjects such as interiors, still life, landscape, and the nude. Scholarly essays and thematic introductions to their oeuvres provide a wealth of information on the two colleagues and friends gained from their writings and correspondence as well as archival material. Another highlight is a series of iconic photographs taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who visited both Matisse and Bonnard at their much-fabled houses in the South of France.