Edouard Vuillard
"In many of Edouard Vuillard's (1868-1940) most famous paintings, figures are nestled in intimate settings among bold patterns and colors. As the viewer's eye adjusts to the complexity of the scene, the artist's world opens up. At a young age, Vuillard was one of a group of avant-garde painters in Paris who favored rich palettes and dreamlike imagery. He was equally a member of the literary and theatrical circles that included writers like Marcel Proust and Ste;phane Mallarme;. As his career progressed into the new century, he entered the rarefied society of upper-class French families--many of them Jewish--who collected the new art, published the new poetry, and wrote the new criticism.This beautifully illustrated book examines the master artist's work in the context of a unique circle of friends and patrons between the turn of the 20th century and World War II. Essays by leading scholars explore the artist's relationship with key members of this glamorous social circle, as well as the connections between Vuillard and Proust, two of the world's great observers of a world now lost.A fascinating exploration of artistic culture in Paris before the war, Edouard Vuillard establishes the artist as one of the masters of the modern portrait"-- "A catalogue to accompany an exhibition at the Jewish Museum, New York, of work by Edouard Vuillard. Although Vuillard (1868-1940) is a major painter of the twentieth century, beloved by connoisseurs, the range of his oeuvre remained little known to the wider public until quite recently. He worked during the innovative period of modern art that spans Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, and abstraction but remained committed to the techniques and subjects of his youth. For this he is often regarded as somewhat conservative and his experiments are rarely recognized, yet his use of color and brushwork is radical and his play of realist and abstract pictorial space is both subtle and complex. After his death Vuillard was overlooked. The private journals to which he confided many pages of reflection throughout his life remained sealed until the early 1980s. Since then, occasional exhibitions and books began to explore his oeuvre in depth. The present volume offers the pleasure of seeing afresh an outstanding painter while exploring aspects of art and patronage in the first half of the twentieth century. Context is important for a full appreciation of Vuillard's achievement: the inspiration and support he received from his patrons and collectors, many of whom were Jewish, remain integral to his oeuvre.3"--
