Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard – Art studies in Paris; member of Le Nabis

Pierre Bonnard was born on 3 October 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris. The son of a civil servant, he was intended for a career as a lawyer, first studying law at the Sorbonne before insisting on a transfer to the Académie Julian. As an art student there, he met active young painters such as Maurice Denis, Henri-Gabriel Ibels, Paul Ranson and Paul Sérusier. He later continued his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris where he made the acquaintance of Édouard Vuillard and Ker-Xavier Roussel. In 1888 he joined the artist group Nabis - the Hebrew name meaning prophets and enlightened ones - a group with a great mission and even greater confidence. Although he was certainly inclined towards the ideas of those involved painters including his study friends Denis, Séruiser and Vuillard, he soon went his own way again and separated from his comrades. This choice of his own path and maintaining a certain distance from all groups and movements remained characteristic of Pierre Bonnard. 

Admiration of Paul Gauguin; friendship with Henri Matisse

Pierre Bonnard was deeply impressed by Paul Gauguin’s painting method, having come across his works in an exhibition in Café Volpini. He shared the view that art was more than what it depicted, that it was the composition of colour and form that made the picture. Figural representation, although still clearly recognisable in Bonnard’s work, merges with the background in such a way that the pictures become dream worlds that are removed from that which is actually tangible. Bonnard’s art dealer friend Ambroise Vollard introduced him to Henri Matisse, with whom he soon shared a mutual esteem. Both saw in the true orientation to painting a fulfilling joy to which everything else must be subordinated - Matisse kept one painting by his friend Bonnard until his death. Although he remained greatly reserved his whole life, Pierre Bonnard received prizes and honours such as honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1940. 

Painting from memory; subjects from the domestic environment

Pierre Bonnard did not paint directly from the motif, but mostly in an empty studio and from memory. Only small sketches and notes in which he had recorded important things in connection with the original, served as support. The weather was often among these small and significant things that helped him to wholly remember the situation he wanted to paint afterwards. Wind, rain or sunshine- Pierre Bonnard placed great value in including these factors in his work, which certainly prompted later critics to make mocking comments. He often found his motifs in familiar settings, in particular his wife Marthe, whom he regularly depicted in his paintings for over fifty years. He painted her unclothed, washing, but at a shy distance, almost like a voyeur, with hardly any direct eye contact between model and viewer. 

Pierre Bonnard died on 23 January 1947 in Le Cannet near Cannes.