This will be the first exhibition to focus entirely on the late interiors and related still-life imagery of Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947). The 70 paintings, drawings, and watercolors on display date from 1923 to 1947; Bonnard spent much of this time in his house in Le Cannet, a hill town in the south of France where the artist settled in 1931 with his wife, model, and muse, Marthe de Méligny. Overlooking the Mediterranean, in a bedroom converted to a studio, Bonnard masterminded the dazzling paintings that we have come to consider his finest—stunning metaphors of daily ritual where raking light and a shimmering palette transform random objects into pulsating color. In looking at Bonnard’s late interiors and still-life paintings, the exhibition will present a deserving reappraisal of the artist in the context of French modernism.

Discussion