The French painter and well-known representative of Post-Impressionism Pierre Bonnard was born near Paris in 1867. In addition to studying law at the Sorbonne, he attended the Académie Julian, a private art school, where he came to know Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier and Edouard Vuillard. In 1888 he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, and in 1889 he joined the Nabis (Hebrew for “prophets”), an artists’ group that oriented itself from Paul Gauguin’s work. Bonnard’s first solo show was presented in 1896 in Paul Durand-Ruel’s gallery. His preoccupation with Japanese woodcuts linked him with the artists of the Jugendstil movement. Bonnard is one of the pioneers of modern European poster art. Ambroise Vollard started publishing his lithographs in 1895. Bonnard drew inspiration for his painting from the everyday life of Paris. From 1903 onwards he showed his work in the newly founded Salon d’Automne. In 1926, a year after his marriage, he moved to Le Cannet in the south of France, where he lived until his death in 1947.
