PIERRE BONNARD (1867-1947) LA REVUE BLANCHE. 1894. 31x24 inches, 79x61 cm. Imp. Edw. Ancourt, Paris. Condition B+: minor tears and restoration in margins and image. Matted and framed. The Revue Blanche was an avant-garde magazine founded by the Natanson brothers. Both Bonnard and Lautrec were frequent contributors to the magazines, as well as close friends of the Natanson brothers, and they were each asked to design a poster for the publication. Bonnard's work exemplifies his deep sense of observation, depicting a street scene with a young boy, a shivering woman, and a man wearing an ample overcoat and a top hat reading a wall of posters. Bonnard employs only four colors to make this street scene come alive. The boy's expression and the woman's attitude are small gems of representation, as is the single, solid mass of color that constitutes their clothing and the typography, that in one place is actually wrapped around the woman's leg. The intriguing image, from the "beguiling sloe-eyed Parisienne," to the "impertinent neckerchiefed newsboy," to the "top-hatted figure bent over the newsstand behind [them]," . . . is one of Bonnard's "most audacious graphic designs" (Ives p. 105ff). Maitres pl. 38, DFP II 77, Word & Image p. 26, Modern Poster p. 8, Abdy p. 93, Maindron p. 41, Color Revolution p. 16, Affichomanie p. 109, Meisterplakate 14.
