Pierre Bonnard
A French painter. In his youth he worked as a member of the Nabis, with flat compositions learned from ukiyo-e, and later painted interiors, gardens, and his family in overflowing color. The Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art holds his "Child and Cats."
Pierre Bonnard was born in 1867 in Fontenay-aux-Roses near Paris. While studying law at his father's wish, he attended the Academie Julian art school. With Serusier, Denis, and others he met there, he formed a group called the Nabis at the end of the 19th century. Nabi is Hebrew for "prophet."
Bonnard was strongly drawn to ukiyo-e at a Japanese art exhibition in Paris in 1890, and his friends called him "the very Japanese Nabi." Its influence can be seen in his tall, narrow formats and in compositions that layer flat patterns like the designs of a kimono. He also made posters, prints, and book illustrations, and painted everyday scenes of Paris street corners and the home with a light touch. "Child and Cats" (around 1906) at the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art also shows his eye for ordinary life. In the 1890s he also gained popularity with lithograph posters for the magazine La Revue Blanche, among other work.
His color grew ever brighter and richer, and in his last years he lived at Le Cannet in the south of France, repeatedly painting the garden seen from his window and his wife Marthe in the bath. Working from memory and building up color over time, he continued painting until he died at Le Cannet in 1947. His late works are filled to every corner with small touches of color.