Edouard Vuillard, notes of biography, gallery Champetier, prints

Edouard Vuillard

"A shape, a color only exists in comparison to another. Shape alone does not exist."

Notes of biography

Edouard Vuillard was born in Cuiseaux, France in 1868. He studied at the Fine Arts School in Paris from 1887-1888, then frequented the Julian Academy from 1888-1889, with his childhood friend Ker Xavier Roussel. He paints still-lives, portraits and realistic nudes, and starts his pictorial research with his friend.
In 1889, Edouard Vuillard joins the Nabis group with whom he will exhibit with the following years. He now paints by mixing on canvases flat tints with spots of color, stylizing his figures, which are sometimes inspired by Japanese stamps. His works are at times very violent and liberally colored; they are, later, called ‘pre-fauvist’. The artist paints intimate about the privates lives of his subjects; he paints interior scenes where the objects or people are at the bottom of the painting. His mother, with whom he lived until her death in1928, is one of his favorite subjects. It is at this time, that Vuillard starts to keep a journal, a journal that he will have until the end of his life.
From 1891, he makes drawings for the ‘Revue Blanche’, using lithography, and later receives to decorate private homes, and create the stage sets for theatre. His first solo exhibition is organized in 1896. It is in this same year that Vuillard paints ‘Paysages and Interieurs’ (Landscapes and Interiors), an ensemble of lithographs that will be published by Ambroise Vollard in 1899.
From 1897, and for almost 40 years, Vuillard will take numerous trips abroad with the goal of visiting museums. In 1900, his style becomes specific as he treats his subjects in both in a realistic and poetic manner (still-lives, portraits, studios, landscapes). Vuillard participates, in 1901, in the Salon des Independants, then in the Salon d’Automne in 1903. At the beginning of the First World War, he is summoned as a line-guard at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine; in 1917 he is sent to the Vosges Front, as an Army attaché artist and fills sketchbooks depicting the life of the soldiers.
After the war, he resumes his familiar world of painting his principal subjects, creating more realistic and detailed portraits. Edouard Vuillard is commissioned to paint portraits for the Bourgeois and the Parisian aristocracy. From 1923-1937, Vuillard paints portraits of the Nabis group, or artists close to the group (Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Maillol, etc.). At the end of the 30’s, he paints mural for commissions he receives.
Edouard Vuillard died in La Baule, France in 1940.

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Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

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Complete work(s)

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Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :

« Vuillard », J. Salomon, Gallimard, 1968
« Vuillard », Michel Makarius, Ed. Hazan, Paris, 1989
« Vuillard : le temps détourné », G. Cogeval, Gallimard Découvertes, 1993
« E. Vuillard : la porte entrebâillée », Musée de l’Annonciade, St-Tropez, 2000
« Beyond the easel… », Gloria Groom, Yale University Press, 2001
« Edouard Vuillard », G. Cogeval, The Montreal Museum of Fine Art, 2003
« Les Nabis », C. Frèches-Thory & Antoine Terrasse, Ed. Flammarion, 2003
« L'Abcdaire de Vuillard », Alyse Gaultier, Ed. Flammarion 2003
« E. Vuillard : Le Monde du silence », J-J. Lévêque, Ed. A.C.R, 2003
« E. Vuillard 1 Ker -Xavier Roussel… », collectif, Ed. Silvana Editoriale, 2017

To read from the artist :

« Vuillard : témoignage », J. Salomon, Albin Michel, Paris, 1945
« P. Bonnard, E. Vuillard : Correspondance », A. Terrasse, Ed. Gallimard, 2001

Website :

www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/vuillard

Art movements

+ NABIS MOVEMENT / 1888-1910 / Paul Sérusier, Paul Ranson, Henri Gabriel Ibels, Maurice Denis, etc.
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