A quiet man who lived with his beloved mother, the painter Édouard Vuillard applied his inventive talents to re-imagining bourgeois interiors as shifting planes of color and pattern. Admirers of his sensuous interior world will be bowled over by this sumptuous volume with its vivid narrative and 463 exquisite color reproductions. In Édouard Vuillard, Guy Cogeval discusses the artist's life and work with a passionate involvement that is rare in contemporary art writing. He describes how Vuillard's early work as a set designer apparently led him to stage manage family members, placing them in tense or confrontational tableaux that he memorialized in paint. Vuillard was an enthusiastic amateur photographer who favored the new handheld Kodak camera. An entire chapter is dedicated to the artist's charmingly artless snapshots of family and friends. In his later years, Vuillard utilized a more down-to-earth painting style in portraits of the rich and famous. While these paintings are often dismissed as conservative, Cogeval points out Vuillard's use of subtle details to comment on some of his sitters. Four other essayists treat themes ranging from "Vuillard and Ambiguity" to the effect of his annual summer vacations on his treatment of landscape, light and composition. This exceptional book accompanies an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., from Jan. 19 to April 20, 2004, which travels to Montreal, Paris, and London. --Cathy Curtis


From Publishers Weekly
The traveling exhibition on which this catalogue is based (it's now in Washington, D.C.) has been described as overstuffed in more than one review. But since one is not jostling for space or walking miles of galleries when perusing this volume, its bulk works in its favor, revealing in 463 color (and 95 b&w) reproductions the breadth of Vuillard's achievement, as well as its limits. The 334 works from the show begin in 1889, with Vuillard and Waroquy, a portrait of the artist and his friend ("of whom we know almost nothing") and plunge into the astonishing works of the 1890s, where Vuillard (along with Bonnard) took Impressionism in new directions. Cogeval, director of Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts, rightly devotes a good portion of the book to this period, providing ample sketches and studies to buttress the case for Vuillard's accomplishment, along with photos of the figures one often finds in the work (also part of the exhibit). After some uncertain mid-period works, the book presents a series of portraits from the 1930s that reveal Vuillard (1868-1940) to have been a "discreet observer of a certain modernity." That discretion, for some, may signal a dead end, but long enough looks at some of these late works reveal that "certain modernity" to have a lot in common with the denatured reality of lifestyle journalism. But whatever one's final opinion of the work, the book (which also includes four scholarly essays and a detailed chronology) allows a contemplation of it that was previously impossible. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Vuillard's lavish painterly paintings have long been prized for their surprising colors, forceful textures, mysterious atmosphere, and molecular animation in which the air itself has texture and hue, but even Vuillard's most avid fans will be amazed at the size of this handsome volume and the diversity of work contained within. The exhibition documented so thoroughly and cogently here is only the second Vuillard retrospective ever mounted; the first was organized in 1938, two years before the artist's death, and Vuillard's profoundly human oeuvre, including his intimate photographs and lush decorative works, has rarely been considered with such breadth and depth. Cogeval, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, and his international cast of contributors, strike just the right balance between aesthetics, art history, and biography as they analyze the tremendous influence women had on his work, and discuss the felicitous evolution from Vuillard's symbolist explorations to his involvement with avant-garde theater to his participation in the Nabi group and beyond. Simultaneously reserved and sensual, Vuillard progressed from thrillingly moody, strongly patterned, alternately oppressive and tender domestic interiors to works radiant with sunshine and infused with a grateful serenity, exquisite testimony to art's redemptive powers. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


(Sanford Schwartz, New York Review of Books)
. . . . Cogeval gives a new sense of the depth of Vuillard's involvement in all kinds of stagecraft.


Booklist
"Cogeval . . . and his international cast of contributors, strike just the right balance between aesthetics, art history, and biography."


Book Description
The illustrious career of Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) spanned the fin de siècle and the first four decades of the twentieth century. During that time, the French painter, printmaker, and photographer created a large number of extraordinary works. This gorgeous book-the most comprehensive and authoritative study of Vuillard's art to date-presents some hundred works that reveal the full range of his renowned artistic abilities. In a series of illustrated essays, the authors explore Vuillard's complex and diverse career, which began with his academic training in Paris in the late 1880s. By the early 1890s, Vuillard was painting the innovative and sensual Nabi paintings for which he is best known, characterized by complex patterns and vibrant colors. Vuillard was also beginning to paint provocative interiors and works associated with the avant-garde theater. The book concludes with an examination of Vuillard's sumptuous large-scale decorations, luminous landscapes, and elegant portraits from the last decades of his career as well as a substantial selection of his pastels and prints, in addition to his photographs, many of which have never before been published. This book is the catalogue for an exhibition on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., from January 19 to April 20, 2003, which then travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal (May 15 to August 24, 2003); the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris (September 23, 2003 to January 4, 2004); and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (January 27 to April 27, 2004).


From the Publisher
Published in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal


About the Author
Guy Cogeval is director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, and author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the works of Edouard Vuillard.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"The long and illustrious career of Edouard Vuillard spans the fin-de-siecle and the first four decades of the twentieth century, during which time the French painter, printmaker, and photographer created an extraordinary body of work. This is the first volume to explore Vuillard's rich and varied career in its totality, presenting nearly 350 works that demonstrate the full range of his subject matter and reveal both the public and private sides of this quintessentially Parisian artist." "In a series of illustrated essays and catalogue entries, the authors explore Vuillard's complex and diverse artistic development, beginning with his academic training in Paris in the late 1880s and the innovative Nabi paintings of the 1890s for which he is best known, including his provocative, disquieting middle-class interiors and his work associated with the avant-garde theatre. The authors also examine Vuillard's splendid but lesser known large-scale decorations, his luminous landscapes, and the elegant portraits from the last decades of his career. In addition to paintings, the volume includes a substantial selection of drawings and graphics, together with a large group of striking photographs by the artist, many of which are published here for the first time." This illustrated catalogue accompanies the most comprehensive exhibition ever devoted to the work of Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). The exhibition opens at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and travels to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

SYNOPSIS

The 19th-century French painter Vuillard, who was friends with Bonnard and a key figure in the Nabi movement, receives extraordinary homage in this lavish catalogue. Guy Cogeval, the director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and three curators at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London (the exhibition will appear at all four museums) have authored the substantial catalogue entries as well as essays on the painter's life and career. Like the exhibition, the catalogue provides exhaustive coverage of Vuillard's oeuvre, featuring paintings, prints, and many photographs he took of his friends, family, colleagues, and models. The catalogue is copublished with Yale U. Press (their ISBN is 0-300- 09737-9). Annotation ©2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The traveling exhibition on which this catalogue is based (it's now in Washington, D.C.) has been described as overstuffed in more than one review. But since one is not jostling for space or walking miles of galleries when perusing this volume, its bulk works in its favor, revealing in 463 color (and 95 b&w) reproductions the breadth of Vuillard's achievement, as well as its limits. The 334 works from the show begin in 1889, with Vuillard and Waroquy, a portrait of the artist and his friend ("of whom we know almost nothing") and plunge into the astonishing works of the 1890s, where Vuillard (along with Bonnard) took Impressionism in new directions. Cogeval, director of Montreal's Museum of Fine Arts, rightly devotes a good portion of the book to this period, providing ample sketches and studies to buttress the case for Vuillard's accomplishment, along with photos of the figures one often finds in the work (also part of the exhibit). After some uncertain mid-period works, the book presents a series of portraits from the 1930s that reveal Vuillard (1868-1940) to have been a "discreet observer of a certain modernity." That discretion, for some, may signal a dead end, but long enough looks at some of these late works reveal that "certain modernity" to have a lot in common with the denatured reality of lifestyle journalism. But whatever one's final opinion of the work, the book (which also includes four scholarly essays and a detailed chronology) allows a contemplation of it that was previously impossible. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal