Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was a prominent member of the
Nabis
, along with
Vuillard (lots 56-60), and had a career that paralleled Fauvism, Cubist, Surrealism
and even Conceptual art. Nevertheless, throughout his long career, Bonnard
remained focused on the substance of paint and the interaction of color on the
canvas. His contemporaries did not necessarily appreciate his carefully considered
formal investigation of color relationships. Picasso, who rose to meteoric fame in
Bonnard’s lifetime, disliked Bonnard’s work and did not recognize his intense formal
approach to color, calling Bonnard’s palette, “A potpourri of indecision.”
While Picasso and Bonnard did not have a kindred approach to painting, they did
have similar scandals which related to the women in their lives. Picasso was notorious
for his many mistresses and marriages to disproportionately aged women, some of
whom would commit suicide following the artist’s rejection; Bonnard also had to
choose between his two lovers
cum
muses, a decision that would cause his mistress,
Renée Monchaty, to commit suicide when, in 1925, he decided to marry his companion
of 32 years, Marthe de Meligny (her real name was Maria Boursin) instead. Marthe,
who was Bonnard’s perpetual model and muse, lived a reclusive life with Bonnard
outside of Paris until her death in 1942. While Picasso expressed adversity towards
Bonnard’s work, Henri Matisse was a close friend, ally and admirer of Bonnard’s art,
from his early
Nabis
days until the end of his career.
Bonnard was one of Vollard’s favorite artists (especially among the
Nabis
). He
exhibited at Vollard’s gallery with the
Nabis
in the late 1890s and produced original
lithographs and
livres d’artistes
with sets of prints that were published by Vollard
(see lot 61). Some of these lithographs were offered in the Armory Show, while the
only other work by the Bonnard in the 1913 exhibition was
Conversation Provençale
,
or
La Siesta
, oil on canvas, from 1911, currently in the Galerie Moderne, Prague.
Bonnard was exhibited with his fellow
Nabis
in Gallery H, near Matisse’s controversial
Blue Nude
, 1907. Four of Bonnard’s lithographs, all sent by Vollard to the Armory
Show, sold for $12 apiece (around $285 today).
