Pierre Bonnard

Although Pierre Bonnard studied law in order to please his father, he was already pursuing art studies by the time he was sworn in as a barrister in 1889. At the Académie Julian, he met Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, key figures in the Nabi group of artists with which Bonnard would thereafter be associated. The Nabis, following the powerful example of Paul Gauguin, shunned the Impressionist technique of painting in favor of flat areas of pure color, sometimes outlined with bold, dark contours. Bonnard first exhibited with the Nabis in 1891. After seeing Bonnard’s one-man exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery in 1896, the legendary dealer Ambroise Vollard commissioned numerous paintings and prints from him. Bonnard was recognized early on as the most “japoniste” of the Nabi artists, adopting the Japanese aesthetic of flat areas of bold color, unusual cropping, and angular perspectives in both his painted and graphic work. The 1890s constitute Bonnard’s great decade of printmaking, characterized by inventiveness and bold experimentation; after 1900 he devoted himself more exclusively to painting.