Edouard Vuillard

Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940)

Jean-Édouard Vuillard (11 November 1868 – 21 June 1940) was a French painter, decorative artist and printmaker. From 1891 through 1900, he was a prominent member of the Nabis, making paintings which assembled areas of pure color, and interior scenes, influenced by Japanese prints, where the subjects were blended into colors and patterns. He also was a decorative artist, painting theater sets, panels for interior decoration, and designing plates and stained glass. After 1900, when the Nabis broke up, he adopted a more naturalistic style, painting landscapes and interiors with lavish detail, and vivid colors. In the 1920s and 1930s he painted portraits of prominent figures in French industry and the arts in their familiar settings.  

In 1888 and 1889, he pursued his studies in academic art. He painted a self-portrait with his friend Waroquoy, and had a crayon portrait of his grandmother accepted for the Salon of 1889. At the end of that academic year, and after a brief period of military service, he set out to become an artist.

Late in 1889 he began to frequent the meetings the informal group of artists known as Les Nabis, or The prophets, a semi-secret, semi-mystical club which included Maurice Denis and some of his other friends from the Lycée. He first began working on theater decoration. He shared a studio at 28 Rue Pigalle with Bonnard with the theater impresario Lugné-Poe, and the theater critic Georges Rousel.

Vuillard began keeping a journal during this time, which records the formation of his artistic philosophy. "We perceive nature through the senses which give us images of forms, sounds, colors, etc." he wrote on November 22, 1888, shortly before he became a Nabi. "A form or a color exists only in relation to another. Form does not exist on its own. We can only conceive of the relations." In 1890 he returned to the same idea: "Let's look at a painting as a set of relations that are definitely detached from any idea of naturalism."

The works of Vuillard and the Nabis were strongly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, which were shown in Paris at the gallery of art dealer Siegfried Bing, and at a large show at the École des Beaux Arts in 1890.

From theater decoration, Vuillard soon moved into interior decoration. In the course of his theater work, met brothers Alexandre and Thadée Natanson, the founders of La Revue Blanche, a cultural review. Vuillardʹs graphics appeared in the journal, together with Pierre Bonnard, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Félix Vallotton and others. In 1892, on a commission Natanson brothers, Vuillard painted his first decorations ("apartment frescoes") for the house of Mme Desmarais. He made others in 1894 for Alexandre Natanson, and in 1898 for Claude Anet.

Some of his best-known works, including the  Les Jardins Publiques (The Public Gardens) and Figures dans un Interieur(Figures in an Interior) were made for the Natanson brothers, whom he had known at the Lycée Condorcet, and for their friends. They gave Vuillard freedom to choose the subjects and style. Between 1892 and 1899, Vuillard made eight cycles of decorative paintings, with altogether some thirty panels. The murals, though rarely displayed during his lifetime, later became among his most famous works.

Vuillard frequently painted interior scenes, usually of women in a workplace, at home, or in a garden. The women's faces and features are rarely the center of attention; the painting were dominated by the bold patterns of the costumes, the wallpaper, carpets, and furnishings.

After 1900 Vuillard continued to paint numerous domestic interiors and gardens, but in a more naturalistic, colorful style than he had used as a Nabi. Though the faces of the persons were still often looking away, the interiors had depth, a richness of detail, and warmer colors. He particularly captured the play of the sunlight on the gardens and his subjects. He did not want to return to the past, but wanted to move into the future with a vision that was more decorative, naturalistic and familiar than that of the modernists.

He made new series of decorative panels, depicting urban scenes and parks in Paris, as well as many interior scenes of Paris shops and homes. He depicted the galleries of the Louvre Museum and the Museum of Decorative Arts, the chapel of the Palace of Versailles.

The theater was an important part of Vuillard's life. He had begun as a Nabi by making sets and designing programs for an avant-garde theater, and throughout his life had close contacts with theater people. He was a friend of, and painted the actor and director Sacha Guitry . In May 1912, he received an important commission for seven panels, and three paintings above the doorways, for the new Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, including one of Guitry in his loge at the theater, and another of the comic playwright Georges Feydeau. He attended the performances of the Ballets Russes between 1911 and 1914, and dined with the Russian director of the Ballet, Sergei Diaghilev, and with the American dancer Isadora Duncan. and frequented the Follies Bergere and the Moulin Rouge in their heyday. In 1937. he and Bonnard received combined his impressions of the history of Paris theater world in a large mural, La Comédie, for the foyer of the new Théâtre national de Chaillot, built for the 1937 Paris International Exposition.

In 1921 he received an important commission for decorative panels for the art patron Camille Bauer, for his residence in Basel, Switzerland. Vuillard completed a series of four panels, plus two over-the-door paintings, which were finished by 1922. He passed his summers each year from 1917 to 1924 at Vaucresson, at a house he rented with his mother. He also made a series of landscape paintings of the area.

After 1920 he was increasingly occupied painting portraits for wealthy and distinguished Parisiane.
Between 1930 and 1935 he divided his time between Paris and the Chateau de Clayes, owned by his friend Hessel. He did not receive any official recognition from the French state until July 1936, when he was commissioned to make a mural, La Comédie, depicting his impressions of the history of Paris theater world for the foyer of the new Théâtre national de Chaillot, built for the 1937 Paris International Exposition.

In 1938, he received more official recognition. He was elected in February 1938 to the Académie des Beaux Arts, and in July 1938 the Musée des Arts Decoratifs presented a major retrospetive of his paintings. Later in the year he traveled to Geneva to oversee the installation of his mural, Peace, Protector of the Arts. at the League of Nations Building.

In 1940, he completed his last two portraits. He suffered from pulmonary difficulties, and traveled to  La Baule in Normandy to restore his health. He died there on 21 June, 1940, the same month that the French army was defeated by the Germans in the Battle of France.
On November 13, 2017, Misia et Vallotton à Villeneuve painted in 1899 became the most valuable Vuillard sold at auction when it achieved $17.75 million at Christie's. The painting had been owned by Nancy Lee and Perry Bass since 1979 when they bought the painting from Wildenstein & Co., the French art dealing family.