Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard
Pierre Bonnard (3 October 1867 – 23 January 1947) was a French painter and printmaker, a founding member of Les Nabis.
Bonnard was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses, Hauts-de-Seine. He led a happy and careless youth as the son of a prominent official of the French Ministry of War. At the insistence of his father, Bonnard studied law, graduating and practising as a barrister briefly. However, he had also attended art classes on the side, and soon decided to become an artist.
In 1891 he met Toulouse-Lautrec and began showing his work at the annual exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants. His first show was at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1896.
Bonnard is known for his intense use of color, especially via areas built with small brushmarks and close values. His often complex compositions—typically of sunlit interiors of rooms and gardens populated with friends and family members—are both narrative and autobiographical. His wife Marthe was an ever-present subject over the course of several decades. She is seen seated at the kitchen table, with the remnants of a meal; or nude, as in a series of paintings where she reclines in the bathtub. He also painted several self-portraits, landscapes, and many still lifes which usually depict flowers and fruit.
Bonnard did not paint from life but rather drew his subject—sometimes photographing it as well—and made notes on the colors. He then painted the canvas in his studio from his notes.
In 1938 there was a major exhibition of his work along with Vuillard’s at the Art Institute of Chicago. He finished his last painting, The Almond Tree in Flower, a week before his death in his cottage on La Route de Serra Capeou near Le Cannet, on the French Riviera, in 1947. 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 eightieth birthday.
Self portrait, 1889
Tempera on canvas, 21.5 x 15.8 cm
Private collection ▼
France-Champagne, 1891
Lithigraph in 3 colors ▼
Woman with dog, 1891
Oil on canvas, 40 x 32
▼ Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute at Williamstown, USA
Intimité, 1891
Oil on canvas, 38 x 36 cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼
Woman in a polka-dot dress
Four-panel Panneaux
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
Sitting woman with a cat
Four-panel Panneaux
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
Woman in a checked dress
Four-panel Panneaux
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
Woman in a blue pelerine
Four-panel Panneaux
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
Poster for “La Revue blanche”, 1894
Colored lithography ▼
The white cat, 1894
Oil on canvas
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼
Ice palace, 1898
Oil on carton parquete
Private collection ▼
Le canotage a Chatou, 1898
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
The lunch of the little ones, 1897
Oil on wood, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Nancy, France ▼
Young woman before the window, 1898
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Little girl with a cat, 1899
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Indolence, 1899
Oil on canvas, 92 x 108 cm
Private collection ▼
Siesta, 1899
Oil on canvas, 109 x 132 cm
National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia ▼
Man and woman, 1900
Oil on canvas, 115 x 72
Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France ▼
Woman in black stockings, 1900
Oil on carboard, Private collection ▼
The terrasse children with black dog, 1902
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Ambroise Vollard, 1905
Oil on canvas, 74 x 92.5 cm
Kunsthaus, Zürich, Switzerland ▼
Woman in a blue hat, 1908
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Misia, 1909
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Hambourg, picnic, 1912
Oil on canvas, Museum of Art
Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, USA ▼
Cherry pie, 1908
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Misia, 1908
Oil on canvas, 145 x 114 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection
Madrid, Spain ▼
Race at Bologne, 1910
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
The red checkered tablecloth, 1910
Oil on canvas, 83 x 85 cm
Private collection ▼
Girl with parrot, 1910
Oil on canvas, 104 x 122 cm, Private collection ▼
Morning in Paris, 1911
Oil on canvas, 76.5 x 122 cm
The Hermitage museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Evening in Paris, 1911
Oil on canvas, 76×121 cm
The Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia ▼
Carafe, Marthe Bonnard with her dog, 1915
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Saint-Tropez pier, 1912
Private collection ▼
Tub in a mirror, 1915
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Landscape in Normady, 1920
Oil on canvas, Musee d’Unterlinden
Colmar, France ▼
Nude washing feet in a bathtub, 1922
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Fish in a dish, 1921
Oil on canvas, 33.4 x 60 cm, Private collection ▼
A woman in a room, 1925
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Two friends
Sketch ▼
The port in Cannes, 1926
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Flowers on a red carpet, 1928
Oil on canvas, 57 x 61 cm
Private collection ▼
Fruit basket, 1930
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Pitcher, 1931
Private collection ▼
Vase with anemonies and empty vase, 1933
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Landing stage, 1934
Oil on canvas, Private Collection ▼
Bather, 1935
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
The terraces, 1941
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Red roofs in Cannet, 1942
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
View of Le Cannet, roofs, 1942
Oil on canvas, Private collection ▼
Peaches and grapes, 1943
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
Garden at midday, 1943
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
Landscape of Cote d’Azur, 1943
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
The last self portrait, 1943
Oil on canvas
Private collection ▼
