Édouard Vuillard

The painter and graphic artist Édouard Vuillard grew up in Paris in a modest family. He decided to pursue an artistic career, breaking with the family tradition that had intended him for an army career. He first studied at the Académie Maillart, and from 1886 at the Académie Julian and the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He was friends with fellow painters Maurice Denis and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947). Impressed initially by the Impressionists, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), and Japanese art, he soon broke away from these influences and subsequently eschewed any school direction, though he always remained closer to the Neo-Impressionists than to the Symbolists.

Around 1890, Vuillard founded with Bonnard and others the group of “Nabis” (the Hebrew word for prophet). His paintings cultivated the world of intimacy and everyday life. As for motifs he preferred interiors and gardens. His best and most extensive achievements were panels and overdoors set into the wall, of which he created a large number from 1894, including those for the Champs-Élysées Theater (1913). These were part of the Nabi spirit, which aimed to incorporate art into the framework of daily life.

Beginning in 1906, Vuillard exhibited repeatedly at Bernheim Jeune but generally participated rarely in exhibitions. He also painted many watercolors and began with lithography in 1893. He produced illustrations for books and theater programs. Together with other Nabis, he developed a deep attachment to the idealistic theater supported by symbolist intellectuals. For the Théâtre d’Art, in addition to illustrating the programs, he designed stage sets and costumes. After the end of the Théâtre d’Art, he co-founded the Théâtre de l’Œuvre.

In 1938, Vuillard was elected a member of the Académie des beaux-arts. When he fell ill in 1940, faced with the advance of German troops, his friends took him to La Baule, where he died a few weeks later.