2. Artists & stock
3. Félix Vallotton
4. Biography

Notes of biography

Félix Edouard Vallotton was born at the end of 1865 in Lausanne, Switzerland where his father had a drug store. He followed classical studies, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in Latin and Greek, at this time he already had a taste for the arts and painting. Félix Vallotton leaves for Paris to attend courses at the Julian Academy; he is quickly noticed and passes the entrance examination to enter the School of Fine Arts, where he is accepted in 1883. While he is living in Paris, he returns regularly to Switzerland for vacation. He meets numerous Swiss artists (Biéler, Reichlen, Gaulis, Blancpain, etc.) and becomes friends with Charles Maurin and the engraver Félix Jasinski. He is passionate about portraits. His art often takes on a certain liberty in respect to the academics with whom he studied.
 
The artist has great financial difficulty. He exhibits for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants in1891. After 1890 he takes up wood engraving, producing two etched engravings inspired by Rembrandt and Millet. The revival that is inspired by this old technique quickly brings him international notoriety of an artist at the point of modernising.
He becomes friends with Vuillard, Bonnard and Maurice Denis, the joins the Nabis group and becomes the principal illustrator for La Revue Blanche. His marriage in 1899 to the daughter of great painting merchant Alexandre Bernheim marks a turning point in his career. He dedicates himself to painting, his first vocation.
In 1900, he is naturalized French. His art does not break with tradition but overwhelms it with his powerful decorative effects, with a palette where the sombre tones alternate with colors that are brighter, that often clash and that are sometimes dreamlike. Fiercely independant, he elaborates his own style in a few years. Moreover, Félix Vallotton is a prolific designer, he tries his hand at sculpture and applied arts, he writes (art critics, novels, theatre, essays, journals, etc.).
Secretive and passionate, thoughtful and sensual, misanthrope and seducer, aspiring with luck but regaling with suffering, the man is as complex as his art in knowing an apparent simplicity. He belonged to the most prestigious art societies, he participated in all the great international exhibitions, in 1903, at the first Salon d’Automne, where he is a founding member, and at the Vienna Secession, where he presents a dozen paintings and receives congratulations from Gustav Klimt and Hodler.
Vallotton takes many trips (Germany, Holland, Sweden, Italy, etc.), and makes more friendships (Manguin, Marquet, etc.). In 1909, he participates in the Foundations of the Ranson Academy, with Vuillard, Bonnard, Denis et Roussel, whilst in Zurich, the Kunstlehaus organizes the first exhibition that is completely dedicated to his work. The exhibitions dedicated to him multiple.
The summer of 1914, Félix Vallotton is in Honfleur, when the war is declared. He tried to enlist voluntarily, but is refused for reasons of his age. In 1917, he visits the Front that inspires a series of war landscapes. At the end of the First World War, he takes trips to different regions of France until 1924, all in continuing to paint until his sickness wins him over.
In 1925, Félix Vallotton is hospitalized in Paris to have an operation. The artist, who was close to his 60th Birthday, dies following the operation.

“The landscapes of Vallotton are not interpretations, but equations.” - Antonin Artaud

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