?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
PIERRE BONNARD (1867-1947) LES PEINTRES GRAVEURS. 1896. 261/8x191/4 inches. A. Clot. Condition A-: minor losses in margins; time staining in margins. Paper. Bonnard was an influential figure in fin-de-siecle art world of Paris. He was closely associated with many art movements, having founded the Nabis with his former classmate, Edouard Vuillard, and being a key member of the Revue Blanche circle. He was also a close friend of Toulouse-Lautrec's, and it was Bonnard who introduced Lautrec to poster art. In a short period of time, Bonnard designed ten posters, most of them for art magazines and art galleries with which he was connected. A one-man show of his work at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1896, and his subsequent work with Vollard, led to his quick international recognition. This poster advertises an exhibition that Ambroise Vollard organized to launch his first portfolio L'Album des Peintres Graveurs. This historical publication, which established Vollard as one of the finest, most influential printers in Paris, included twenty-two prints by twenty-two different artists, including all of the Nabis. To capture the intimate scene of a woman seated alone and admiring a print, Bonnard only uses three colors. Masterfully using the blank paper, he plays a sophisticated game with the solid color masses of the background. The typography is also most ingeniously handled, being presented in a black and white fashion that would not be seen again until the avant-garde posters of the 1930s. The poster was printed by Clot, whom Philip Denis Cates, in The Color Revolution, refers to as the foremost lithographic printer of the color revolution. Maitres DFP II 78, Modern Poster p. 8, Gold 184.
