Vuillard Book

Edouard Vuillard was a modest man, with a talent for surrounding himself with the most brilliant artists and writers of his time. He led a placid and comfortable life in the townhouses and countryhouses of fin-de-siecle Paris. Out of this life came great art.

As a young man, Vuillard was a member of the Nabis, a diverse group of artists who joined together in 1888, imbued with a common desire to transcend Impressionism with its emphasis on recording pure visual sensations. Inspired by Gauguin and influenced by the Symbolist poets, they produced an art of great excitement and beauty, and laid the foundations for fauvism. Painting his family, friends, and colleagues at home, in their salons, bedrooms, and gardens, Vuillard achieved a style utilizing color and pattern that endowed his familiar subjects with the mood of an exquisite and subtle dream. He found these intimate pictures difficult to share with the public: "It's dreadful, revealing all these secrets!"

In life, Vuillard surrounded himself with the best and brightest of his day. He shared a studio with Pierre Bonnard and frequented Mallarme's famous salons. Along with a galaxy of stars, he contributed to La Revue Blanche, and like many others, fell under the spell of the owner's beautiful wife, Misia Natanson. In an essay, accompanied by documentary photographs and works by Vuillard and his contemporaries, art critic Stuart Preston creates a portrait of the man and his world. In his commentaries to the colorplates, he delves further into particular associations and occasions that illuminate each painting.

114 illustrations, 40 in full color, 128 pages, 8-7/8 x 12"