Pierre Bonnard

Original Prints: Lithographs

A major figure of the Nabis movement, Pierre Bonnard (1867 - 1947) first gained fame for his lithographs and posters in the early 1890s, serving as inspiration for Toulouse-Lautrec, among others.

Far from academic considerations, and drawing on the clarity of Japanese prints (whence his nickname "Bonnard le Japonard"), his graphic style was spare and casual, characterised by bold design layouts, using refined tonal values and textures to evoke the bustle of urban life or the warm intimacy of an interior.

Les Chiens Roger-Marx 25; Bouvet 25 lithograph, 1893, the only known state, a signed and numbered impression of this delightful work. Bonnard's first contribution to L'Escarmouche (a widely-read satirical weekly magazine), is also his most playful, the casually cavorting dogs is echoed by the deft handling of a lithographic brush

Le Verger The Orchard Roger-Marx 48; Bouvet 56 color lithograph, 1899, the extremely rare first state (not described by Roger-Marx or Bouvet), a very fine trial proof, with variant colours, before the edition of 100 that was published in Germinal, Album des XX estampes originales, by Julius Meier-Graefe. Bonnard had aready experimented with five-colour lithography and this chromatic variant of the print shows a vibrant blue replacing the black of the published version, which results in a brighter and more refined composition.

Parallèlement Roger-Marx 94; Bouvet 73 109 colour lithographs in rose-sanguine, 1900, the only known states, a unbound proof copy of this exceptional work, with several of the rare bistre-coloured variants (as shown here). Bonnard's lithographs for Ambroise Vollard's landmak edition of Verlaine's Parallèlement, remarkably provocative, were to revolutionize the art of the illustrated book.

Femme debout dans sa Baignoire Woman standing in her Bath Roger-Marx 81; Bouvet 94 lithograph, 1925, the rare 2nd state (of 4), signed and annotated, one of only five proofs before the edition. In the early 1920s, living at Le Cannet in the south of France, Bonnard executed several lithographs for the publisher Edmond Frapier, of which this nude figure is exemplary.         next artist  >