Jean-Édouard Vuillard (Cuiseaux, November 11, 1868 - La Baule-Escoublac, June 21, 1940) was a French illustrator and painter of the Les Nabis group.
Édouard Vuillard's Biography
Édouard Vuillard moved with his family to Paris in modest circumstances in 1878. After the death of his father in 1884, he received a scholarship to continue his education.
At the Lycée Condorcet, Vuillard met Ker-Xavier Roussel (a future painter and also Vuillard's brother-in-law), who advised him not to pursue a military career. Vuillard then entered the École des Beaux-Arts, where he met Pierre Bonnard.
In 1885, Vuillard left the Lycée Condorcet and joined his friend Roussel to work in the atelier of the painter Diogène Maillart, where they received rudiments of artistic training. In March 1886, he entered the Académie Julian, where he took classes with Tony Robert-Fleury. Admitted to the Paris School of Fine Arts in mid-1887, he was a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme.
In 1888, he joined Les Nabis, contributing to the group's exhibition at the Le Barc de Boutteville art gallery. He later shared a studio with the other members of Les Nabis (Pierre Bonnard and Maurice Denis).
Vuillard first exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1901 and the Salon d'Automne in 1903. In the 1890s, he met the brothers Alexandre and Thadée Natanson, founders of the cultural magazine "La Revue Blanche," which would publish his graphic works, along with those of Pierre Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Félix Vallotton, and other artists.
His work highlights the representation of many interior scenes, where the casual, sweet, and intimate atmosphere of everyday life transpires. During his studies, he already showed interest in still lifes and domestic interiors, themes that marked his work. Later, he would also paint large decorative panels depicting landscapes.
Among his panels are the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, in 1913; and his last commissions received in 1937 (Palais de Chaillot in Paris, with Bonnard) and 1939 (Palais des Nations in Geneva, with Denis, Roussel and Roger Chastel).
He also devoted himself to lithography from 1893. He drew several illustrations for books and theatrical programs. Thanks to his friendship with theater director Aurelien-Marie Lugne-Poe, he made several scenographic works, acting in several theatrical montages of the vanguard at the turn of the XIX to the XX century.
Recognized for the quality of his art, he was elected a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1938.
Vuillard fell ill in June 1940; his friends Lucy and Jos Hessel, who decided to leave the capital in the face of advancing German troops, did not want to leave him alone in Paris and transported him to La Baule; where he died a few weeks later at the Castel Marie-Louise.
He is buried in Paris, in the cemetery of Batignolles.
Works of Édouard Vuillard
- 1891 - The Green Interior
- 1882 - Sleeping Woman
- 1882 - Self-Portrait
- 1883 - The Artist's Mother and Sister
- 1883 - The Yellow Curtain
- 1884 - Matrimonial Life
- 1902 - Lunch at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne
- Woman in Blue with Child (Mother and Child)