Pierre Bonnard
The intimist of colour.
Pierre Bonnard painted his home, his wife in the bath and the garden in radiant colours, often from memory.
Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses outside Paris. He first studied law, as his father wished, but at the same time attended the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. There he met Édouard Vuillard, Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis.
Together they formed the Nabis group, after the Hebrew word for prophets. They wanted to renew painting on the basis of Gauguin’s flat colours and emphasised the decorative side of art. Bonnard was so influenced by Japanese woodcuts that he was called “le Nabi très japonard”, the very Japanese Nabi. His poster for France-Champagne of 1891 was a success and made his name. He also produced lithographs, book illustrations and screens.
In 1893 he met Marthe, whose real name was Maria Boursin. She became his companion and his most important model. They did not marry until 1925. He painted her in hundreds of pictures, not least in the bath, where she lies in the shimmering water as if time stood still. Marthe was sickly and spent a great deal of time in the bath, which partly explains the motif.
Bonnard rarely painted directly from the model. He made quick sketches and colour notes and then painted from memory in the studio. He often did not stretch his canvases but pinned them to the wall and worked on several at once. Over the years his colours grew ever more radiant. He depicted his home, the dining table, the garden and the view from the window, and was said to want to capture the first impression of a moment.
From 1926 he lived at the villa Le Bosquet in Le Cannet above Cannes, where he died in 1947. For a long time he was seen as a latecomer to Impressionism, but today he is regarded as one of the foremost colourists of the 20th century. A museum devoted to him opened in Le Cannet in 2011.